Sunny’s Nutcracker

Every year, Sunny’s school puts on an all-student performance of The Nutcracker.  This doesn’t just mean everyone who performs is a student, it means all students perform, from the 6-week babies to the 6th-graders —they even have alumni kids come back to help wrangle the dancers.

Janie spent three years at this school and was, in order, a Snowflake, a Spanish Dancer, and a Flower.*  Sunny has followed in her sister’s footsteps until this final year, when she was cast as a Russian Dancer.

“Not a dancer, Mommy,” she told me.  ”A tumbler.”   And she proved it by somersaulting into the barrister’s case.  For three weeks.

But the performance itself is always a hoot and you can’t get near the stage for parental groupies.  My husband and Janie went to the balcony to take photos with his camera, while my MIL and I did what we could from the main level.

These aren’t good, because I took them and my husband left for an all-day yoga workshop right after the final curtain call, taking his camera with him.  And the theater was dark and the similarly-dressed dancers kept moving and, well, I took them.  But these are the best of the lot and should give you an idea of the exuberance and fluidity of the experience.

To keep things more manageable, the cast—barring the littlest members, who “go to bed” right after their acts—stays on the stage:

The kids are sitting about five deep.  Sunny is on the right, behind the pointsettias.  I think.

Here’s the epic battle between the Rat King’s mouse troops and the tin soldiers.  The soldiers were outnumbered this year—two took one look at the audience and fled back to their cupboard—but since most of the mice ignored them to fight each other, it didn’t matter much.

The Rat King and the Nutcracker duke it out.I took this about ten seconds before the Nutcracker’s head spun around and fell off.  It was great.  Clara, who’s doing the oh, dear face under the tree, will be taking off her shoe and decking the Rat King, thus becoming the first self-rescuing princess in ballet.

The Chinese Dancers, with dragon.  There’s more to meet the eye with this dragon . . .

. . . a lot more.  Last year, the last segment of the dragon broke free and had to be chased down by Herr Drosselmeyer.

The flowers were as busy as bees this year—they would occasionally plant themselves, and the Flower Fairy on the right would smack them on the head with her wand to make them twirl again.  If the Fairy had been wielding that when Jane was a blossom, it might have been a little less vaudeville . . . Which would have been a shame.

Here are the Russian Dancers.  Sunny is third from the left, or fourth from the right, and kicking like a small, curly Cossack.

She’s next!

To the delight of the audience, she threw her hands high in a sort of gymnastics salute . . .

. . . bent in half . . .

 

. . . flipped over . . .

 

. . . And recovered to thunderous applause.  I’m not kidding—the ladies behind me were cheering.

Especially on her second pass, when she threw her hands up high . . . then stopped the proceedings to pull her pants up.  It brought down the house.

As did her curtsey before she hid behind the poinsettias again.

“You were wonderfull,” I said later,while trying to get her new Hello Kitty! bootsover her still-kicking feet.  ”Did you have fun?”

She grinned at me.   “I was scared when I was waiting, Mommy.  But then it was my turn and I was brave.”

Yes, you were, sweetheart.

This was our last year for this particular production company’s Nutcracker—Sunny will be going to Jane’s school for kindergarten.  But it’s always so much fun, I think I might sneak in next time as an alumni parent.**

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*In her last performance, she and her friend hammed it up so much,  I was certain the Flower Fairy was going to plant her permanently in the stage, petals down.  Her father and I sympathized.

**One of the ladies behind me did—she says it’s even better when you don’t have to worry that your Snowflake might absentmindedly stick her finger up her nose to the second knuckle while waiting for her cue.  Sounds good to me.

Janie Photos: Going Tropical

Our new furnace is being installed today!

We’ve been without heat since Thursday—considering the alternative, this isn’t a complaint—and have done several creative things to keep warm, including space heaters, bundling, redefining the concept of pyjamas, heating up clothes in the dryer,* and lacing the flannel sheets with catnip to attract our roaming feline tummywarmer.

My husband took the kids and my MIL to the botanical gardens yesterday, which is a good move if you’re cold—it’s semi-tropical in there.  I was playing it a little cooler at the library that afternoon,** so I handed Janie my camera*** and told her not to lose it, thus earning back all the  Best Mom Ever points that I’d lost during Saturday’s Science Homework Incident.

This is what I missed:
   
I don’t know what that bright yellow flower is, but it reminds me of this one (credit to my husband for this image, as Janie is in the background getting her left hand painted):

Janie caught half of her father looking alert in the foliage (I was told he’d just noticed Sunny about to plunge into the turtle pond) and another lovely flower I can’t identify:

    

She also took more photos of koi than you would credit, even for an eight-year old.  Apparently, they kept moving.
These are the best of many—chosen mostly because I think the orange one in the right image looks like a dolphin.

    

She (reluctantly) handed her father the camera to record the face- and hand-painting.  Apparently, she told him to be very careful with it, because Mom would want to use the pictures in The Blog:

She was so right.

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*That was an accident, because I forgot that I’d started a load of laundry last night before writing time, so I shivered until it was all dry and wrapped myself in hot cloth. It was a transcendental experience that I’ll be repeating every morning until Spring.

**I don’t work many Sundays, thank heavens.  It’s only three hours, and I like the comp time, but my husband always finds such great things to do when I’m not around.  I can’t tell if my absence leaves a terrible hole that can only be filled with pure awesome or he’s just being passive aggressive.  But next week, when he’s gone, I’m taking the kids to the Muppet Movie.  So there.

***I’m thinking of getting her a one for Christmas, though if I do, the only images I’ll have in my camera will be of thumbs and Picasso People.

A short autumnal commute

Our Internet connection problem turned out the be the neighborhood’s connection problem, but they’ve jury-rigged a solution until they can run some underground cable.

We’re back, baby!

In celebration, find below the first post I’ve uploaded at home since Sunday—ironically, it’s shorter and more slapdash than the ones I worked on offline . . . But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence . . .

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The fluctuating weather is confusing the trees around here.  

A few have already burst into their autumn plumage, but a lot of them are holding onto their chlorophyll with grim determination because temps hit over 90F just three days ago.  Our neighbor’s tree embraced nudism last week—or it sneezed suddenly, we’re not sure—shedding its leaves in a yellow puddle at its roots, while the oak in our back yard is still cheerfully pelting us with its progeny.*

But interesting colors are starting to pop up along our daily commute, so I handed Jane the camera and told her to record some of them for posterity.

“You mean the blog?” she asked.

Um, yeah.

I weeded out the blurs (“Mom, stop the car!”  “Honey, I’m on the highway!“) and the point-blank self-portraits she uses for warm-ups,** but the rest are pretty good for an eight-year old aiming a cheapo digital camera through the back window of a Honda—and much better than her mother could do stock still with an expensive lens:

       

I think these next three work well as a series—they’re a little blurry, maybe, but I like the composition. 

 Then again, I’m biased in favor of the photographer.

(I think the shadow in the right lower corner up there is us)

       

      

  This last tree is right near our house, and on the way home, the setting sun makes the golden leaves glow.  Unfortunately, the camera wasn’t quite up to the task, and I don’t have Photoshop.  But it’s still pretty.

 

What does your neck of the woods look like right now?

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*I swear I saw it bean (or do I mean acorn?) a squirrel the other day.  The squirrel leapt three feet in the air and ran for its life.

**
 . . . .

They didn’t win, it’s a shame . . .

 . . .  but watching the fourth game of our local minor league (single-A) game was still a good way to spend Sunday afternoon, when the temperatures rose to 80°F and the humidity just a tad higher. 

We had very good seats:

Full confession:  I did bring my latest scene to edit, in case the spirit moved me and the game did not.  I did end up watching, but mostly because two of my favorite umpires were there:

The one on the left is my secret sports crush.  It’s too bad he wasn’t watching the same game I was, but I’ll forgive him, this once. 

Umpire pants, incidentally, look remarkably good on certain people.  Trust me—I’ve made a study of it. 

Sunny’s favorite part.  it was so humid, they only had to do this once, before the game started.  The wind picked up, and the mist felt really good:

The stadium, by the way, is right next to one of the more picturesque bridges around here.  Those buildings on the left horizon are across the Mississippi River: 

Janie took over the camera for a while, which means half the images look like this:

But she also snapped this next one, which I think is the best of the bunch:
The pop-up did have a remarkable hang-time.  The runner made it to second before the catcher lived up to his job description.

Our side hit nothing but home runs—just not enough of them.  But I did get my scene edited while the other team was at bat.  And it didn’t rain until we reached the car.

And excellent day, all told.

How was your Sunday?

Bored Kid(s) with Camera

I finally bought the palm-sized digital camera I’ve been wanting.  Nothing fancy, but now we won’t have to cart around the large digital camera everywhere in case a photo-op presented itself or kick ourselves for forgetting it.*

Janie—who was bored in the way only eight-year olds can be on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon with no prospect of television or computer time until after dinner—perked up when she saw it.  Her mother—whose last nerve was being twanged raw from a couple hours answering said bored eight-year old’s questions about when dinner was gonna be—perked up when she saw this.

After some basic instruction, I handed over the little guy and asked her to try it out for me—and to please shoot some stuff through the windows to see how the images turned out.

She took some excellent images of a squirrel doing his squirrelly activities outside the living room window, which I wish I could share.  But she figured out by herself how to delete the images, so when I went to look at them, I had only an assortment of self-images taken by my beautiful, charming, and genteel daughter:

She does have pretty eyes, even when they’re crossed. Or glazed.

But at least hers are in focus.  I decided to try taking some photos of the river on the commute home, which would have worked better if I hadn’t been the one driving.  Aiming was pretty much out, as per cosmic law, I couldn’t catch a single red light in the entire four mile stretch.  I did however, catch something else:

Yes.  My thumb.  Which isn’t in focus, either.** But this one turned out all right, if you imagine the river running slightly downhill . . .

I’d better post this and go—it’s Sunny’s turn with the camera, and she’s just blinded the cat . . .

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*Or, I might add, spring for phones with photo capability.  I’d make a lousy Luddite, but the only thing I use my phone for is to make phone calls—I even block texting and will continue to do so until all phones come with keyboards.

** I can hear MacDougal Street Baby and Averil rolling their eyes.