Tippy Toes and Tantrums

40x40: Candy Overdose

There was an unexpected opportunity to cross off a 40x40 goal while at Peter Pan last week. I can be tight with sugar, yet both of my kids have a sweet tooth, which makes me feel like a hard-ass most of the time. My plan had been to take them to a candy shop, give them each $5 and let them spend it as they wished. However, I was kind of reluctant to do that because the nearby candy shop is pricey and I knew the $5 would not go far at all, which would cut into the fun. Plus, they'd have to keep weighing, adding a little, re-weighing and that's a buzz kill too.

CityMama tipped us off that the Peter Pan concessions featured a $6 candy tub. It was a small Chinese food-style container that could be filled to the brim with candy, all for the flat $6 fee. Stefania held three modestly filled containers for her kids and a friend, but I knew my kids wouldn't settle for that. That's when I remembered the 40x40 goal, plunked down my $12 and let the kids go to town.

I helped Rocket, who picked a variety of candies, a little of this and that, while Kevin tried to guide Clover. When we walked out, I picked up both containers to carry into the theater. Clover's was easily double the weight of Rocket's. It felt like a brick. They were both filled to the top, but she must have pressed down with the metal scoop to compact the candy to make more room. Like trash day after a big party, when you're determined to get everything into the garbage can. I can't say I blame her.

Rocket fed himself a nonstop stream of candy, kind of like how one would eat movie popcorn, during the show, until I took the containers away to slow the kids down. I gave them back later and while Clover showed a lot of restraint, Rocket nearly finished his stash. This was all washed down with lemonade, of course. I was happy, the kids were ecstatic (and a little confused by this change in my attitude) and all was well.

Until 3 a.m. when we heard, "Mom? I threw up."

Peter Pan, Just Right For Kids

Rocket is a wild boy who loves talking about pirates. He frequently asks questions about the specifics of pirate life and the same questions are often asked about "bad guys" too. Pirates are bad guys, but they're the bad guys of the sea, while regular bad guys are landlubbers. At first, I tried to answer the questions honestly and to the best of my knowledge, but after answering "I don't know" a few too many times, while also complicating the subject by bringing in examples of Somali pirates, I gave up and started making up the answers. What do pirates eat? Junk food, probably fast food. No vegetables or fruit. "Ohhhh, that's so bad," he responded, never questioning how a pirate would find a floating McDonald's. It works for both of us - he gets to talk about pirates and I get to weave in some life lessons.

When given the opportunity recently to see the pirate who started the obsession - Capt. Hook - as part of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, I jumped at it, but then I quickly paused because Rocket is only four, younger than their suggested minimum age of five. We went ahead with it anyway, with Kevin joining along in case Rocket needed to be taken out during the performance. Instead of fidgeting or talking, Rocket was mesmerized. The theater is in the round and all of the seats are quite close, which helped pull Rocket into the action. (Also, a container of candy kept him seated, but that's a post for tomorrow.) Other than a few loud booms and a provocative dance by Tiger Lily, the show was appropriate for a four year old.

Clover and Rocket loved the production. They thought Tinker Bell was funny, they enjoyed the puppetry, were impressed by the crocodile, and they loved Peter Pan. Clover especially loved Tinker Bell because she was authentic to the story, not the glammed up version frequently passed off today. Jonathan Hyde was absolutely amazing. It wasn't until final curtain that I realized he played both Mr. Darling and Captain Hook.

I hadn't seen or read Peter Pan since I was young. I remember it being dark and stressful (no parents around can be fun, but who is going to make dinner?), and as an adult, it's even more so. I wasn't stressed, but it was more depressing than I remembered. They are truly lost boys. And what about Wendy, with her willingness to take on a mommy role? Is it playing on the stereotypical role of girls to want to play mommy or did she (or the author) have larger issues? At the very end, (SPOILER ALERT, maybe? But really, it's an old story) Wendy walks out of another room, leaving Peter Pan and her daughter alone. I thought, "Are you crazy, lady?"

Later that evening, Clover said she liked how the story started over. She explained that Peter Pan was still essentially a child and he found another child to play with, keeping the story moving on. I loved that she grasped how things circled around again. Her discussion of the characters was richer than I'd ever heard from her before. Last year, she walked out of Wicked, somewhat naive to the greater message, but at age seven and a half, now she's better able to understand plots and characters. It was a fun revelation.

After the show, we got a change to meet some of the characters and while both of my kids were excited to meet Nate Fallows (Peter Pan), they were too shy to converse with anyone else, even when the sweet Abby Ford (Wendy) came over to talk to them. Actually, my kids had to be convinced the actors really were the characters they just saw on stage. I don't know if they completely believed me. "That guy with the Coke in his back pocket was Peter Pan? Really? That guy? With the hat?" Clover asked me in disbelief. (For the record, it was a can of Coke and somehow he did fit it in the back pocket of his jeans.)

This was the most professional play Rocket has seen and he aced it. It was a great introduction to theater for him and I was relieved with how well he handled it because next month both kids will see their first Broadway show. I have to remember to pack some candy, just in case.

Peter Pan is playing through Sept. 5 at Ferry Park on the Embarcadero, across from the Ferry Building.

Disclosure: I was given four free tickets to the show from Three Sixty Entertainment.

And Then the Wedding Finally Happened

I Said, My Hair Doesn't Hold a Curl

I asked for the top of my hair up, with an up flip on the bottom. Simple. I thought I would be finished in 15-20 minutes. The idea was tossed out to curl my hair. I thought they meant curling to help the up flip. I said that my hair has never held a curl, not even when I got a perm my freshman year of high school.

The curling began. When I realized it was ringlets, I asked if that's what they were going to do all over my head because my hair doesn't hold a curl. I say "they," because there were two women curling my hair, both holding searing hot curling irons millimeters above my scalp.

"Don't worry, it's going to soften up," one of the hair dressers said.

"I know. My hair doesn't hold a curl."

At the one hour mark, I started to freak out on the inside. One hour of my hair being curled over and over again because as they finished one section, the starting curls went limp and they'd have to double back to try to curl them again.

At this point, I started visibly freaking out. That's when the hairspray began. Not even when I was in the seventh grade and used Aqua Net to hold my hair straight up, have I ever had so much hairspray on me. By the time I walked out, my hair was limp. By the time I got home, it was completely flat. Not a curl remained.

My hair looked greasy for the wedding because while the curls went away, the heavy hairspray remained.

I wanted soft and romantic. I didn't know I had to specify "clean looking" too. 

At least I didn't have a Bump-It.

The Kids Clean Up Well

My sister got married last Friday, which added enough chaos to our lives that I practically went offline for a few days. My kids were in the wedding - Clover was one of the flower girls, while Rocket was a ring bearer, both in name only as they walked down the aisle blowing bubbles instead of holding flowers or rings. 

Clover got her nails done with the girls. The color is Funky Dunkey and would have been the perfect color to have worn to the Yahoo! Mother Board Summit. 

Rocket wore seersucker pants and a straw fedora to the rehearsal. The kids has style, even if he still rides in a car seat.

Yahoo's Mother of All Conferences

Mini conferences are where it's at. I love the big, flashy conferences too, but it's hard to meet people beyond a "hello" and a business card exchange. Come to think of it, I didn't hand out one business card during the Yahoo! Mother Board Summit last week. Almost everyone was a face or name I recognized, which could be the reason cards weren't exchanged, but instead, people would immediately start to follow each other on Twitter. Somehow through the closeness of the event, we all knew enough about each other to want to read the daily (hourly) 140 character observations we each put out. It felt more like sleep-away camp than a conference.

The schedule was packed, but not in an overwhelming way. It was the type of day where I never looked at the time, which is a good sign that the presentations were engaging.

As was pointed out by Elisa Steel, Yahoo! Chief Marketing Officer, connections and technology are key components of a mom's life. At least in my world, moms juggle everything and I know using a smart phone helps, or there are the Yahoo! groups we form to facilitate playgroup or classroom communications. Also, moms need to monitor what our kids are doing online, not just at a computer, but on their phone or on their Touch or PSP - anything that has internet access needs to be watched. It was a reminder that my daughter's school needs to address cyber citizenship and that ignoring the massive influence of technology doesn't help anyone. Bullying may appear to be down at schools, but that's because it's been taken online where it's more anonymous and can be far more vicious. Schools need to embrace the upside of technology too by not stopping online classroom groups that allow parents to be connected. Most importantly, schools need to update their websites so they don't look like they've remained untouched since 1992 (okay, no one brought that up at Yahoo!, but it's a personal issue I have with one child's school. Still a valid point!) Technology is marching on, and while that doesn’t mean that everything is better, it is still a fact. Ignoring progress doesn’t stop it. Adjusting and adapting are far wiser options.

I'll skip over the myriad technical blogging things I learned, although I will admit to never knowing that Flickr uses Picnik for photo editing. I've had a Pro account for awhile, but never even looked into editing on Flickr. I wish Flickr hosted video longer than 90 seconds. I've been struggling with where to put up personal videos to share with family, but the options don't have the integration, ease of use, and privacy controls that Flickr has. Again, personal issue.

While everything I learned had great value, my greatest takeaway wasn't what about SEO or the social functionality of Yahoo! products, or that mid-day cupcakes are amazing, but it was the number of times I fell into giant fits of laughter where I couldn't breathe. Beyond the content, Yahoo! brought us together and created this perfect environment for getting to know one another while discussing a subject we all love. It felt a little bit like a blogger’s Sun Valley. It was perfect.

Disclaimer: Yahoo! paid for all food and beverages during the Summit. As a local blogger, I didn't get any travel compensated, but I crashed in Robyn's room for free.

The Tooth Fairy for Non-Believers

Questioning the Tooth Fairy's existence started long before Christmas, but it spilled over onto that holiday, dragging Santa Claus into the battle. When Clover lost her fourth tooth a few months ago, she announced that there was no Tooth Fairy. In fact, her plan was to avoid telling us she lost the tooth, so she could test her theory by quietly placing the tooth under her pillow to see if it was exchanged for money, but her excitement got the better of her and she needed to share. Even with the information that a tooth was waiting for exchange, a comedy of errors ensued - the tooth was placed in a tooth pillow instead of under the real pillow the first night, the second night the spots reversed, then finally the tooth wound up forever lost. A tearful note was left for the Tooth Fairy and pity money was left, even though there wasn't a tooth, but instead letters of reference supporting the lost tooth claim were left under her pillow.

The tooth swap was always stressful because Clover would stay up extremely late, desperately trying to catch the purported fairy in the act. Trying to do a tooth swap at midnight is hard, but it's even worse when one parent promises to do it during the middle of the night, then accidentally sleeps straight through until morning (for the record: it wasn't me).

We've always been cagey about these things, telling her she could believe whatever she wanted, but to receive, one must believe. Basically we wanted her to shut up, go with the flow, with the feeling of superior knowledge, while letting her brother's beliefs remain intact.

She finally pulled off her true test. When brushing her teeth the other night, she noticed her tooth was hanging on "by one thread" and she yanked it out. She cleaned up and quietly said goodnight and went to bed. The next day we were charged with a great big "AH HA!" She showed us the gap in her mouth and the tooth in her little pillow. It was her gotcha moment. I shrugged. "I knew there wasn't a Tooth Fairy!" she exclaimed. "Now you're out a dollar," I replied. Her face registered the loss.

Later she approached me calmly and I asked her what the point was in knowing the truth. "I don't believe in the Tooth Fairy, but I want the money. I want the Tooth Fairy, whoever it is, to come. I still want to put out my tooth and get money for it." I told her that she should just do that and not talk about it. Play the game for fun. "I'm not talking about it much," she said. "You're talking about it enough that other people - smaller people - may hear and it may ruin things for them," I said while nodding toward Rocket. "I know, I almost told him, but I stopped myself." I doubt she'll be able to zip it for long.

That night she took my advice and set out her little tooth pillow with a note asking for more than a dollar, maybe "two or three" because this was special, it's the first of her top teeth to go. She played the game by going along with the tradition. The only problem is that the designated Tooth Fairy fell asleep and forgot to do the exchange. Some things never change.

Product Review: Summer Bridge Activities

Clover doesn't get homework at school, and while I'm thrilled, she seems a little disappointed. I've bought her workbooks that she's burned through. She'll work at them with the intensity of a high school student trying to get into Harvard. When the Summer Bridge Activities books arrived - a second-third grade for her and a pre-K-K for Rocket - she couldn't wait to get started. However the books arrived before summer began, so I made her wait until school was out before she could open them. It was painful for her. She'd ask about them, ask to look at them, ask if she could do Rocket's for him. Finally it was summer and I handed them over.

As a bridge workbook, it's meant to be used a little each day to maintain what was learned during the previous school year. Clover's OCD kicked in and she became obsessed about doing the assigned part each day. If we were away from the house, she got a little nervous about it. She returned home before bedtime after a weekend at my parents' house, but instead of getting ready to go to sleep, she went straight to her workbook.

She says it's not fun, that there could be puzzles or word games instead of "all the reading, writing and math," but still she continues on, even though we've never asked her to do one thing in the book. All of the work is clearly grade appropriate. Rocket's book includes counting, matching like items and identifying similar sounds or colors. Clover's has basic addition and subtraction, with reading comprehension work in there too. The books seem good to me and they appear to serve their purpose.

Rocket hasn't opened his once, which is fine with me because we'll save it for next summer when he should better prepared for it. Clover just sighs at Rocket's slacker approach. Part of me cannot wait to see them 10-15 years from now, to see if their approach to academic work has changed and how well each approach serves them. Will Clover still be intense and will Rocket still be getting by on charm and a single dimple?

Disclosure: The Summer Bridge Activities books were given to me for free.

Meet Pagoda, Our Eastern Painted Turtle Dependent

I don't know if this classifies as scientific or educational

Some time after we moved in together, Kevin decided he wanted to get turtles. He researched a lot, ordering top quality equipment while figuring out the best type of turtle to buy and just before he hit send on the turtle order, he said something to me about "my turtles." Ummm, my turtles? Despite my never mentioning turtles or the desire for a pet, he said that he thought the turtles were for me. We did not get the turtles.

We kept the equipment, moving it from apartment to house to second house, where it has sat in our garage for years. Late last year my friend opened her front door to see a turtle marching up her walkway. She took him in and while she emailed her neighbors and wondered what to do, I offered to adopt the turtle because we had all of the equipment ready to go. A neighbor quickly responded that the turtle was hers, a recent addition to a backyard stream, never expecting any of the turtles would leave their habitat, scoot under a fence and escape. When the adoption was scrapped, Kevin was disappointed, but the timing was right because this happened days before his fortieth birthday. With no better gift in mind, I said he should get a birthday turtle.

It took a few months, mostly because life got in the way, but Pagoda arrived last week. In addition to the kids, I've got to keep alive one dog, one fish, two water snails and one turtle. I've killed countless goldfish, plants and one hamster (if you'd believe my mom's questionable accusations) through neglect. I'll admit my track record is shaky, but - knock on wood - I think I've turned this thing around.

Disney's World of Color Roadshow Comes to SF

Disney magic made it's way to San Francisco and I was lucky enough to see it. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I squealed like a child when we spotted Minnie and Mickey walking arm-in-arm as we drove up to the Legion of Honor to see Disney's World of Color Roadshow. I composed myself quickly...I hope.

The World of Color Roadshow is fabulous. It's meant to give online viewers a taste of the real World of Color show in Disney California Adventure. 

Of course there weren't fountains spraying up to 200 ft in the air forming a massive water screen, in fact there wasn't water at all. Instead they transformed the facade of the Legion of Honor into different styles of architecture before showing some famous love scenes from Disney and Pixar movies using really high-tech projections. The Legion of Honor is beautiful in any light, but the way Disney transformed it was stunning.

I loved how it looked covered in flowers, especially.

The roadshow is making its way through California, stopping next in Sacramento's Old Town where it will feature a nature theme, San Diego where the theme will be water, and ending in Los Angeles with a sky theme. Following the iconic song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," San Francisco's theme was love, which is why the love scenes were featured for this stop only. Even though the locations are changing, the show is meant to be viewed online (show times listed on the website), but there is interaction for online viewers through a nightly vote for a featured color. The three colors - blue, green, and red - represent the three Good Fairies from Sleeping Beauty. The winning fairy will appear to fly from computer screens to the live venue to transform the landmark using the selected color. I voted for green (Fauna) and green looked awesome last night. But, hey, vote as you wish. The roadshow was only three months in the making, almost as long as it takes me to plan one of my kid's birthday parties, which is a testiment to the talent at Disney.

When we visited Disney California Adventure in April, we were wondering what was up with the bay. We could see what appeared to be lights and other equipment, with some work going on, but it looked strange. It all made sense last month when we'd heard that the World of Color show had opened. It took five years to bring the show to fruition, featuring a platform that rises out of Paradise Bay, nearly 1,200 fountains, 36 fire cannons, over 100,00 images, and 28 high definition projectors, 14 of which are submersible. That was why Paradise Bay looked a little strange. By the time we visited, the water had returned to Paradise Bay, but during the construction, the water from Paradise Bay was pumped out, stored and returned, helping to earn Disney a 2009 Governor's Environmental and Economic Leadership Award from the State of California.

We haven't seen the actual World of Color, but I've heard it's amazing and that those sitting close get wet. For best seating, guests can obtain a FASTPASS during the morning of the show or through dinner options, including a picnic meal with reserved viewing or a prix fixe dinner package at Ariel's Grotto and the Wine Trattoria restaurants. Of course availability is limited on all options.

As can be expected when mouse ears are around, the talk at the roadshow turned to Disney parks and cruises. Finally, Disney cruises are coming to the West Coast! Heading to both Mexico (from Los Angeles) and Alaska (from Seattle). Woot! And just in time for the kids cruise free special offer! Kevin recently asked when I'd be ready to cruise to Alaska with the kids and I brushed the question off, but now that it involves Disney (with its top notch entertainment for kids), and this limited time special offer, I'm tempted. Although Mexico sounds more alluring right now. A new cruise ship will be added to the East Coast, which has this one feature that I find exciting and scary: the AquaDuck, a clear, curvy water ride that GOES OUT OVER THE OCEAN! You can look down at the water - that is if you're brave enough to open your eyes! For the record, I would not be brave enough...probably not even brave enough to get on the ride at all. Actually, it looks amazing. I'd suck it up for the kids. They've also created virtual portholes to make interior rooms appear to have a window using a live feed from outside. Goodbye closterphobia!

More my speed is the addition of some new rides at Disney California Adventure. I've only been to DCA twice and it appears to be approving greatly with age. It used to be fun for kids and worth a few hours, but on the last trip, it was definitely worth an entire day. Next year Ariel's Undersea Adventure will open, followed by Cars Land, a 12-acre re-creation of Radiator Springs hosting three Cars-themed rides.

Disclaimer: Disney gave me a cookie and a Vinylmation Mickey Mouse figure following the Legion of Honor viewing. The items must have carried some Disney magic because my kids did not fight over them. Rocket grabbed the cookie, while Clover went for the Mickey.

DCA World of Color photo courtesy of Disney.