(insert nutcracker theme here)

Tonight I went to Tuzer Ballet's production of The Nutcracker with my sister spud, Caitlin!

My friend Alessandra was in it, and she was AMAZING! I want to be a fancy ballet dancer!

Honestly, I had a hard time not rooting for the mice. They were played by the little kids ballet group, and were so small and fluffy and cute! There was one that was tiny and white and fluffy and she bounced when she walked.

So... as you can tell we were feeling inspired (again...and again) afterwards.

We're seriously considering taking beginners ballet together at UTD next semester!

Pleasant View

Today, on my way home from my sister's house, I passed Pleasant View Drive and was seized by this intense need to see the house I grew up in.

So I drove up the hill my sister broke her roller skates on, past the driveway we sledded down every winter with all the neighborhood kids (and there were lots of kids), past the sidewalk I learned to ride my bike on, the backyard where my best friend kissed me when I was 6, up to the little blue and white house.

And everything was the same. The fence was more faded, and the crack in the sidewalk (we used to hide things there) a little bigger, but almost everything was the same. The Dann's house was still immaculately clean and incredibly red, the spot on the pavement where Jason spilled the paint was still bright purple, the Coryn's house still dark and scary. Even those garish, mismatched, blessed purple and pink crepe myrtle trees were still there.

This was the house we loved most. Here the March family grew, had a war, survived a flood by building an ark... here the Greens visited and Elliebird and Monolog and I put on our horrifically long plays about separated Scottish twins who get glued together by fate. I met my best friend, Emily, at this house. In this house we sheltered a litter of rescued kittens and a herd of baby chicks (we tried to teach them to fly... oops), and saved our beautiful kitten, Shadow, from an abusive home and a horrible thunderstorm. He was with us 15 years, and died last week. While we had him he served as King of Beanieland, fierce protector of the March and Halfpenny farm (our dollhouse world), show lion in our backyard circuses, Emperor of the neighborhood animals, and cart-oxen for our dolls.

I didn't expect to cry. I miss Shadow, my little friends, the silly fights we had about which polly pocket house was best, Jason, the muddy-shoe club, and all the silly things that make being little feel so different.

Oh man.

So... I'm babysitting again tonight, and Wes told his dad before he left,

"Daddy, you look like a president"

because he was wearing a tux.

And then before he went to bed (after I told him a very, very, very modified version of Peter Rabbit, wherein Peter was named Wes and fought Mr. Macgregor because Macgregor was growing deadly vegetables to kill all the rabbits. Beatrix Potter, I'm sorry.) he told me,

"Your socks are funny. They're sooo beautiful, they could be princess socks. And fly!"

Look out for the dread ship Aleyula!

Have I mentioned before how much I love the kids I take care of?

Wes (or King Wes, or Astronaut Wes) just brought me pirate flag shaped cookies and a birthday card he made for me. It was too cute not to share... the first page is a pirate ship named "Aleyula", and the second is the castle from the bedtime story I made up for him Friday night. This castle held all the citizens of the whole wide world. And apparently it has a face.

time to dress up as giant cats!

dadaw and i "polishing our boots"

hehe... i think this picture explains itself. its funny, caitlin and i still make all the exact same expressions we made when we were little.

elliebird and brother and my cousin and i playing in the mud.

don't look at me that way E, we both were. yes all those adjectives you are applying to how you look in this picture... we both were.

King Wes

I sometimes babysit these two kids, Wes and Brooklyn... and tonight while I was over there, Wes decided that he didn't want to be read to, he wanted me to make up a story for him.

Hmm. Ok then. I should be able to do this.

And then the imagination went SWOOOSH. Gone. So as I've been listening to the Narnia books on the way to class, my mind went there immediately.

So I proceeded to tell him the story of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. He was particularly enthralled with the part where Edmund betrays them for unlimited candy... he said

"Man, Edmund was a dum-dum! All the candy in the world would just make him sick. And throw up!!! and DIE!!!

(pause)

Hey, why didn't they just feed the witch all the candy in the world?"

.

Later on in the story he said that the White witch was like this girl in his class who liked to destroy all the nature and all the sandwiches.

.

And then, my favorite part... I had just gotten to Aslan's return, and he told me he didn't want Aslan to be king and kill the witch, he wanted King Wes to do it. So with a slight cringe and a whispered apology to Lewis, I proceeded to tell him this alternate ending. Maybe it should be considered for the Narnia movie special features disk?

.

And it was then, just as Aslan came back to ... er... talk to Santa?... KING WES appeared, and rode fast all the way to his castle, where he fought back the evil army, and then he stabbed the witch with his fasterthanlightning magic sword! And then he went inside and turned all the statues back into people, and rescued a friendly giant from a big net. And then King Wes bowed to the 4 children and let them borrow Narnia for a while so he could go into space. Because apparently King Wes can jump into space without a ship or suit. THAT'S impressive.

.

I love this kid. He's the bomb.

.

.

(check this out... i got a little shout-out over at the beehive)

the bard and the bully

i think i've mentioned the shakespeare class i'm teaching this year... (loving it, by the way!) ... and i've been so impressed and excited by how quick all the kids are and how eager to learn, by some in particular. i know that having favorites is bad, but if i were to have a favorite it would probably be Jared.

12, blonde, TONS of freckles, and always so unabashedly enthusiastic about the play and about learning. it's wonderful to see him not be ashamed by his interest in the subject, especially at that age, where such things are apparently uncool. so last week we were having a nice little discussion of the roman conspirators and what character traits/flaws led up to them deciding to assasinate caesar, and Jared started talking about it, and as he spoke he got more and more excited and breathy and loud, quite earnestly. here are his thoughts:

" well... i mean, caesar wasn't all that girly (looks around at all the girls in the class) ... uh, i mean weak, but cassius kept talking about what a sissy he was, and that he couldn't swim so that meant his brain was weak, and all the conspirators were so much better than him and they could swim too, so they assasinated him! so i think cassius was just... well... well... he was just a BIG FAT BULLY!"