Ah, the Life of a Thespian

It has been a big week for the SFC girls. On Monday, Julia was a Christmas angel in the preschool play about trees and families and red feather boas - I don't know, it was a little unclear as to what exactly was going on. But I did catch Julia's big line, delivered in typical Julia TOP VOLUME EXTREME LOUDNESS:

"THE FAMILY WAS SO HAPPY THEY FOUND THE PERFECT TREE THEY CUT IT DOWN AND OFF THEY WENT."

Brava, young thespian.

On Tuesday, Katie and the other 5th graders at her school graduated from the D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education, for those of you not familiar) program. At one point, another parent told me, he looked out at all the children and took note of the bored expressions, with one notable exception - Katie. Who absolutely beamed the entire time. "Aren't you proud of me?" she asked me afterward. So proud, I said. I didn't say, let's talk again in 9th grade when your BFF is rolling up a doobie and showing you how to shotgun a beer.

They probably don't call them 'doobies' anymore.

I did notice something about 5th graders - either they are still very much little kids, all bony elbows and baby faces, or they are - like Katie - Amazon children. They have legs longer than mine and everything about them is getting thicker, and no one can find a pair of pants that fit. They all look old men, with their waistlines up to their armpits and their grown up teeth, still too big for their mouths.

They are adorably awkward.

Tonight was opening night for 'A Christmas Carol', as presented by the children's theater where Katie takes an acting class. The entire cast was children, from the age of 5 to the age of 18. They did everything, from stage manager to prop master, rearranging sets between scenes, and several of them played multiple parts. Katie was Martha (Bob Cratchitt's daughter) and Mrs. Dilber (one of the people who cast lots for Scrooge's belongings after his death). She was perfect. They were all perfect, even when they weren't.

The Ghost of Christmas Present is, in the story, a Bacchanalian figure - all mirth and merriment and enormity. He is, in this production, a wee boy of about 8. He summed up the entire show with one line:

"You have never seen the like of me before!" exclaimed the Spirit.

"Never," Scrooge made answer to it.

Never, indeed. What a wonderful show. What a wonderful week.

Julia Jumps

and flips and somersaults and dances and moves at a nearly non-stop pace from the moment her feet hit the ground in the morning until she is tucked in at night.

And nothing moves more than her mouth. Her first words every morning when she was just learning to talk were: "UP. I EAT." Now, they are "What are we doing today? Where are we going today?" And I'd better have an answer ready, and it had better be good.

Today, I answered the question with two of her favorite things - school and gymnastics. School, where the awesome Miss Nancy let them play in shaving cream. She's awesome because there is not a trace of shaving cream anywhere on my child - not in her hair, on her clothes, in her nose or ears, or any other place where you might expect to find it on a little kid.

And gymnastics, where Julia's ability to do things like climb the knobs of the kitchen drawers is not only okay, it's encouraged.

Photo of the day for January 6! It stinks, because I haven't learned how to do motion photography and she won't stay still.

Yesterday, we washed and dried and broke up into tiny pieces and dyed egg shells to make a mosaic. A fun craft with a cool end result. It gets a 4.5 on the pain the ass scale, because of the wait time between drying and dying. Next time I'll know to do that step in advance.

Photos of the day for January 5! Eggshells dying. In wine glasses, because we're fancy like that.

Our mosaic egg.