January News

You know you're neglecting your blog when...you miss two family birthdays!

Mine was back on January 9th. I treated myself to a morning alone at Panera; all six kids ate dinner with us--a rare occurrence these days--and Chicklet11 made me birthday brownies. Everyone gave me handmade cards with sweet notes in them, and most indulged my request to play a game of Trivial Pursuit together. A great day!

Eldest Bantam turned 23 on January 21st. His birthday fell on a Tuesday, which is the day that B8, C11 and I are gone all day at Classical Conversations, with just an hour or so before classes at Spotlight Youth Theater. So we had birthday dinner the night before. Once again, we had everyone around the table, at least for 20 minutes or so! (Blondechick had to leave before pecan pie, the birthday dessert he chose, which B14 helped to make!)

He asked for and received a couple of Halo books and an official Halo hoodie. He is so proud of it, and he looks very handsome in it.

But his big gift was one he bought himself, from a friend--a secondhand XBox 360 and a subscription to a gaming site. He has been waiting a long time for this, and he's so excited.

We had actually promised to buy him one if he could get his weight down to 170, which he has not quite achieved. He was at 250 after his first year in college, and he easily got back down to 200, his pre-college weight, but he's been stuck there ever since. He knows our fear is that the XBox will encourage him to be more sedentary, so ever since his friend offered him this deal, he's been demonstrating a renewed commitment to exercise and low-carb, veggie-heavy lunches. He lost 8 pounds in about 10 days and it's noticeable in his face. So hopefully he'll keep it up, to prove to us that we didn't make a mistake in allowing him to have it early!

I mentioned theater classes. This session I'm teaching Drama 1, with a Charlie Brown theme. B8 is in my class--one of just two boys--and he's Charlie Brown in our showcase skit. (I asked another drama teacher to help me with casting of the boys, to be sure of impartiality!) B14 is taking Improv Prep. If he makes the cut at the end of the session, he'll be on the Kenosha Improv Team next session, and compete again in June, as he did last year. Chicklet11 auditioned for and made the Project Dance Jr. class, which is a two-session commitment, so she'll be taking it again this spring. She is learning lots of technique and really loving it. She begged to be allowed to take another class besides dance, so I let her take a voice class which is performing songs from Thoroughly Modern Millie for Showcase. She is so happy to learn the words to songs she heard me practicing last summer!

Rehearsals have been going on for The Wizard of Oz, as well. Chicklet11 is excited to be the Coroner of Munchkinland, with little solos and one big one: "As Coroner, I must aver, I've thoroughly examined her, and she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead." She's also a Jitterbug Dancer, which will be a fun number! B8 is a member of the Lollipop Guild, which gets me, because that's the same part that B18 had back when he was B9. He is also a Flying Monkey, which he's really excited about, because they get to wear Heelys onstage! I am so thankful I bought a pair at Goodwill a couple years ago, even though they were too big for him then. They're expensive!

B14 is a Jitterbug Dancer (fun for him and Chicklet to have the same part--a first!), a Winkie one of (the Witch's guards) and a Tree who throws apples at Dorothy to frighten her and sings back-up harmonies to the Tin Man's solo. He will be wearing stilts for that scene, and on the first day they were practicing with them, it was a little more exciting than anyone expected.

After he and his friend had the hang of them, they jacked them up to the highest setting, about 4 feet off the ground. He was doing fine until he tripped on a folding chair leg, stumbled into other folding chairs and finally fell forcefully into a glass window. He bounced away from it as he hit it, but the window shattered and he was cut on his hand and arm and just nicked his chin. Fortunately, it was right at the end of rehearsal, and I was only two minutes away. (I often send B23 to get them, but this time I was the one coming to pick them up--thank the Lord!) There were other parents there too, arriving to pick up their kids, including a nurse who was helping to stop the bleeding when I arrived. We went to the ER and determined that he did not need stitches. We deferred an X-ray on his sore knees--at worst, he might have a patella fracture but it seems more likely that nothing was broken.

He was really shaken up, and we all were so aware of how life-threatening the accident could have been. We are so thankful to God for his protection, and that his injuries are so minimal.

On the plus side, now he has a great story to tell, with a scar to prove it! How many people can say that they've fallen through a glass window while wearing stilts??