Does Penny Have Her Own Show?

I'm a bit of a scavenger. When I see something useful-looking on the curb on trash day, I do some thorough examining and occasionally bring home some real treasures. This is how we acquired a seven foot tall cardboard box in our living room. (Thanks to the neighbors who have some kind of addiction to person-sized holiday decorations and appear to have purchased two nutcrackers that each stand 6'4".) The box arrived a little over a week ago, so Halloween was still on the kids' minds when they took crayons to decorate our new playhouse, which is big enough for everyone to fit in (even me) and requires internal lighting because it is so long.

There was something odd in the decorations that I noticed, though. Penny was kind enough to put on a jack-o'lantern for each member of the family. She also has been practicing her spelling, so each is labelled. You see Zoe with Dad, Paul on his own (much like real life), and I'm with Penny on the inside. Then there's this other pumpkin on the side, labelled "you." Who is this pumpkin for? I wonder if it's a reflection of all the "educational," participatory TV she has watched. the characters in shows always treat the viewers as though they are in the show with them. Blue will get three costumes, one for herself, one for Sprinkles and one that she hands to the camera for "you," the viewer. So the question then becomes, is Penny trying to be inclusive for when we have guests over, or does she think she has an audience out there watching her. Kinda creepy when you think about it.

 

Hilarious Halloween

 With no major weather impediments this year, we were able to enjoy a pretty exciting Halloween. It wasn't even that cold for the school's costume parade. Penny had conceded to switch to the Ariel mermaid costume for this year, but then fell back to her butterfly costume at the last minute. This is perhaps the best $8 I've spent on a costume, having now been used for three years. In the end, I felt good about the decision because there weren't many butterflies, but there were quite a lot of other Disney princesses (and two other Ariels in her classroom alone). I think there may be eight or nine princesses in this picture! Personally, I like Penny's friend Elizabeth in the Wolverine costume.

Paul was determined to be part of the parade himself this year. He followed Penny around for a while, then struck out on his own. He took center stage as the after school club did their annual performance. The kids were good sports about it, maneuvering around him as they went through their choreographed moves for Thriller, Monster Mash and other numbers. Though I wanted to get him out of the way, I figured him throwing a big tantrum in front of the whole school would be more disruptive than letting him stay in there and do a few moves of his own.

 After school, our cousins came by to join us for a little trick-or-treating. Dan had scouted a nice route that brought them by a good number of houses, but also hit some of the wildest decorations in the neighborhood. Paul, as you can see, wasn't particularly into the idea of Beggar's Night at first. Why fight to get him into a costume? He likes his frog hat - won't wear both mittens because that would prevent him from carrying his favorite school bus. Connor gave the jack-o'lantern costume another opportunity to get used. Dan and Tom went for a little role-reversal - Dan as a British footballer and Tom (British) as a doctor.

While the guys took the kids around the block, Sharon and I hung with Paul on the porch, enjoying the warm weather with some bubble blowing. This was perhaps the best way for Paul to spend the afternoon. He eventually warmed to the idea of going begging for chocolate, so when the gang returned to empty their heavy bags and go around again, he went to join them. Zoe decided she'd had enough, so she stayed with us for the second round as we got dinner ready. She missed out, apparently, as the second route uncovered an Elvis impersonator drawing quite a crowd and some seriously profitable houses.

As someone who had an awful lot of awesome homemade costumes growing up, I feel a bit like a slacker for relying on store bought costumes. However, I am at least getting lots of use out of them and they aren't dressed like every other kid out there, which does feel pretty good. Plus, they had an awesome time regardless of what they were wearing and that's really the point.

Coloring Mecca

Dan's recent vacation came with three full weekends available to do all kinds of wild and exciting family activities, so we've been living it up recently. Our first weekend, Dan recovered from night shift while enjoying the company of the two oldest. I zipped off to New Jersey for a bridal shower. Zoe...not so fond of long road trips. Alas.

The second weekend, we decided to make a day trip to the mecca of all things coloring related - the Crayola Experience. A little expensive, kind of a blatant marketing ploy, but the kids thoroughly enjoy coloring and they start charging kids at age two. We had to get in while we would only be charged for three people! Penny managed to find an attempt at an educational exhibit - here she is modeling being a photon of light. She was ricocheting from exhibit to exhibit throughout the day in the sheer delight of all the fun things she could make and do. Honestly, for the amount of craft activities in the place, it was a cheaper admission than the Children's Museum of Art in Manhattan. Paul could have spent the whole day at the coloring table - every color of crayon imaginable from metallics to fluorescents and an infinite supply of paper. He just kept coloring away while Penny went on the factory tour and any number of other activities. He's very fond of coloring, though perhaps his work doesn't resemble much to anyone else yet. Today he handed me a picture and told me it was Captain Hook's Mommy. Looks like the usual circles to me, but he had very specific intentions when he colored it.

We came away with lots of fun crayons and markers that the kids either made themselves or personalized.  Here, Paul is pushing buttons to make his own marker. The inks actually blend together in the tube over time. At least, that's what we were told. The individual colors are still visible in the markers today and we went back in October. Zoe hit her limit by 3pm or so. The older two began to get cranky around 4pm, so we were all pretty much on the same page to head home for dinner. While Dad handled some diaper changes, Penny and I zipped through the exhibit halls using up the last of our tokens to procure art tools for later (another marker, a different color crayon, a few packs of clay). The exit was a little messy as they force you to go through the gift shop to get to the exit ramp. But strapping Paul into the stroller and Zoe to my chest made it at least doable to leave the building with the two of them while Dan went round to fetch the car from the metered parking a few blocks away. I was pretty pleased with how much fun they had and being able to get in and out as a day trip with minimal meltdown action. Penny was already talking about having her next birthday party here instead of back home. Sheesh! Planning the sixth birthday before she's had her fifth. What next?!