30 Days of Gratitude: Days 20 & 21

Day 20: All things Disney. Walt, of course. Mr. Disney is on my short list of dead people I'd love to have lunch with. The theme parks absolutely and Disney movies! I'm especially grateful for the opportunity to go tonight to an advanced screening of a new Disney movie, Frozen, with my little girl. I would have been a life long Disney fan no matter what, but it is so fun to share them with my kids.

Day 21: I'm grateful for the way my husband's brain operates (sometimes). I'm grateful that he participated in the Great American Teach In again this year. I'm glad that he was, once again, a rock star for doing the presentation "his way". He gave a new generation an understanding and appreciation for computer programming with jousting turkeys compelled by programming commands to charge at one another with meat thermometers.

Fabulous Friday!

With all the Pre-school, camp, library events, doctor's appointments and general running around I hadn't spent much one-on-one time with Miss Roo. Today was our day! We got up at our old wake up time and had a nice long cuddle. We picked up donuts for breakfast. We had to bring Mulan and she HAD TO buckle up! God Bless whoever invented the drive thru! We ate at home and shared with the boys before we dropped Isaac off for his last day of Beginning Lego Robotics. They had a tournament today! Robot Sumo, anyone else wish they were 10?

We headed over to the kids club at the crafts store to make a clothes pin moose and tissue paper flowers. They even gave Riley a tote bag. After crafts it was home for chicken nuggets and The Magic School Bus. Riley's favorite is the bat episode. Then it was time for a quick nap and off to Monster's University 3D!

I don't want to bore everyone with too much coupon talk, but it is safe to assume if I'm taking the kids anywhere this summer it's free or very cheap. Our movie date is courtesy of Disney Movie Rewards and Kellogg's Family Rewards who gave me a ticket each. Woohoo! Since I only scored two and Riley had a buddy planning to go see the movie too, "girls only" worked out great. Don't worry about Isaac he had a grandma date while we were out. It actually cost me one whole dollar for Roo and I to see a 3D movie on opening weekend! I win!

The movie was adorable! Baby monsters are just the cutest darn things. I thought the girls were phenomenal. I forgot Riley's water cup, like a dope, so I did have to buy her a bottle of water. It was still a very cheap and fun date. I was slightly bummed that Disney didn't send special brightly colored 3D glasses like they did for the re-release of the original. Even with a storm that caused the theater to have "system trouble" it worked to our advantage because we were all seated and ready long before they had the movie playing. Rushing in the dark on crutches never ends well. Also, because they where so behind we didn't have to sit through any previews! Score.

After the movie (having thought ahead enough to both be wearing them) we grabbed our free smoothies in honor of National Flip Flop Day! I had to get creative to get them to the car. I handed Riley both straws and one crutch. I hobbled slowly out the door with the drinks in the other hand. They were delicious! It was a good day for freebies: Medium hot coffee, Tote bag, Movie tickets, Smoothies. It was an great day for mother daughter bonding too! I love that girl so much. Happy Weekend, Everybody!!

Everybody Do The Dinosaur

Prepare to feel old...ready? Jurassic Park just celebrated it's 20th anniversary!! I can vividly remember clutching my Dad's hand in the theater during the raptor scene. To say seeing that movie had an impact on me would be an understatement. An impact not unlike my inability to stay submerged in water for any length of time without hearing the Jaws theme. Ripples in the water glass people, ripples in the water glass. We had a date night to see it during Jurassic Park's brief theatrical re-release.

My response to acquiring a 3D TV was "when are we getting Jurassic Park?". I absolutely did acquire it on 3D Blu Ray the day it was released. So worth the wait. I don't think it's as scary as I remember in 2D, but total worth re-watching. In 3D at night it is exactly as scary as I remember.

While Mike and I were out running an incredibly romantic Home Depot errand we saw this:

I was sooo excited to have found the Jurassic Park jeep. I kept asking Mike what it could be doing there and his guess what "picking up a dino pooper scooper." It turns out, they DO carry them. Home Depot for all your dinosaur needs.

I think it's sweet that not only did Riley make T-rex some "wunch", but she made sure to put a bib on him first. Doesn't everyone's 3yr old girl have a a stuffed T-rex?

Dr. Ian Malcolm: "John, the kind of control you're attempting simply is... it's not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh... well, there it is."

Finding Oz

We recently watched a Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode in which the main character was "disabled." Technically, all disability and disease has been eradicated at this point in the future. This woman is native to a planet with very low gravity which makes it very physically exhausting to get around in normal gravity. I know how she feels, Damn Gravity! Seriously, I love the idea that a low gravity planet exists! I would love to go there. When I was a little girl I always wished I could live underwater.

So, this capable young woman finds the station's doctor smitten with her and of course he has a plan to fix her. Collective groan from my disabled readers. Although not as overdone or ridiculous the sitcom stand by of meeting a girl you like and then finding out she's (gasp!) disabled and having angst about perusing her, this plot's been done. My favorite example of this plot is actually a subplot in The Poisonwood Bible. A book that when presented to me as a gift bore the inscription "Can't wait to see you play Ada in the movie." Ada's is the disabled character who falls for a neurologist. Her doctor succeeds in "fixing" her and then one of my favorite audition monologues ensues. The gist is that she's not sure who she is anymore and how arrogant the able-bodied are always trying to "fix" people.

In Star Trek's version the doctor falls for her before he tries to fix her unlike the the asshole in the book. Other than that it's fairly similar. She undergoes the first round of treatment and experiences euphoria at her temporary change. Then she feels all the discomfort that goes hand and hand with a major change to your physicality and she starts to doubt herself. I emphasized with her struggle. She is already a strong beautiful woman who's struggles have made who she is, in her case a Star Fleet officer. In her situation though there is the added element of never being able to return to her home planet for any length of time once the changes are permanent. Another character compares her to the Little Mermaid which is funny after my underwater comparison, but completely apt. All the sacrifice and pain to be other than you are (each step is like walking on broken glass in the original fairy tale)and you can never go home.

I enjoyed the episode other than a fleeting moment or two of yelling at the screen. I understood her. I, like her have never asked to be "fixed", but there were some moving moments related to this in Oz the Great and Powerful (not spoilers). As he's performing magic tricks a wheelchair bound girl in the audience asks him to make her walk. He refuses, apologizes and flees the theater. At that early point in the film I was attempting to roll my eyes at the cliche, but his reaction to it was so human, I couldn't. Later, in Oz, he meets a little China doll whose legs have broken off. He produces super glue and that girl does walk. Again, I wanted to roll my eyes, but it was so real (feelings not circumstances) I couldn't. It is a shallow victory because she has her legs, but she's lost everyone she loved.

The china doll was a character I could relate to. Only her body was fragile, everything else about her was tough. She was braver and more resilient than most. She becomes an important part of the group, but the Star Trek character like so many disabled TV characters leaves the show after one episode. I think the it would have been fascinating if the doctor had married her. Than they would have had to navigate being military, living in space and her unique physicality. On top of which the doctor would allows be trying to fix her and it would cause all kinds of tension.

I'm not saying I would watch a show because it had a disabled character. I'm just saying we have lives and adventures too. It would be nice if television used disabled characters to further interesting plot lines and complicate character relationships rather than as token minorities for "movie of the week" style writing.

Mike's Birthday

So, as well timed as ever Mike's birthday fell right between the baby shower and the first day of school this year. Let me just take a second to have an old lady rant, what the heck are they doing starting school on a Monday?!? It was always midweek when I was a kid. Am I wrong? I don't know that anything's wrong with this on a grand scale, but it's different and it threw a wrench in my plans. Darn those f-ers and their schedule mangling, half days every Wednesday?!? Who needs this crap! I digress, my husband had a birthday.

He is not a social creature and over the 5-6 birthdays I've been here for he's had two "parties." Both of those were arranged by me (at his request). I told him this weekend was a marathon for me and I needed to know early how he'd like to spend his day. In typical fashion he answered "I don't know" to the general and more specific questions approximately 1,000 times before I bullied an answer out of him. That answer was "Please don't make me do anything."

Honestly, I relieved not to have to throw a party together at what felt like a late hour and sad that he routinely lets these things go by without ceremony. I took precautions and got my mom to agree to hang out with the kids for a block of time. I figured either he'd want to be left alone and there would be two of us to keep kids from under foot or he'd decide he did want to go to dinner or something and we'd have a sitter.

It was a good call. I was destroyed, far, far beyond tired this morning. I did the mom's version of sleeping in:

• Get up and take someone to the potty and go back to sleep
• Wake up and fire off instructions for the big one to feed the little one and go back to sleep
• Wake up and tend to the dog and then go back to sleep
• Finally, wake up in a panic because you haven't slept passed 9 for at least a year and your body is producing excess adrenaline at this point.

It was laid back because we were tired, but I did discover while laying in bed playing on my phone that The Watch had come out. We'd discovered this movie's existence after loving the BBC show IT Crowd and looking for anything else with those actors in it. It was finally out and playing in one theater in the whole city with two showtimes a day. Freaking two?!? Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Richard Ayoade in a movie together and there's two chances a day to see it. That's crazy!

Anyway, now we had a plan we were seeing this movie. I love movies. Prior to dating Mike (when I could afford it) it was a weekly habit. Since, becoming a mom...well I think I can count the number of movies we've seen together in a theater on one hand. We saw Total Recall last week when my mother-in-law watched the kids. That was our first movie in at least a year. I was so excited to be going again so soon!

The Watch was really silly and gross. Just a whole lot of fun and pretty much what you'd expect for a movie with that cast about a neighborhood watch averting an alien threat. I know Mike enjoyed himself. I think his first day of his 31st year was exactly what he wanted. That's always been my job with my husband, but as a event planner I do that for anyone will let me. Gosh, toot, toot. I just mean I find it really satisfying to help someone have exactly the day they want. I quite enjoy it.

Happy Birthday, Honey!

Experiment Failed

I saw a preview for Arthur Christmas in November and decided Isaac and I would be equally thrilled to see it. I knew for sure he and I had to attend Thanksgiving weekend. What I was unsure of was whether I'd be driving by then and if Riley would be up to it. I proposed the outing to Mike fully expecting him to pass. I had my mom lined up as back up and everything, but he thought a family trip to the movies sounded good.

I figured it couldn't be that bad with two of us. Surely, Riley would be engaged by a 3D movie about Santa for at least half the film. Mike could spend the other half walking her around the lobby since he's not such an animated movie enthusiast. No big deal. Turns out both of my suppositions were wrong I couldn't drive and Riley could not handle it.

She lost it at the end of the 30min of previews. I was a little stressed at that point too. Good lord, Disney these are kids give them a break! She watched about 20ish minutes of the movie in total (it's a 2ish hour movie). Mike ended up taking her next door to Target for more Christmas lights. When the movie ended Isaac and I had been thoroughly entertained. I had a bit of trouble getting up the incline and out of the theater after all that sitting, but the nice man at the end of the row lent a hand (probably because I was blocking traffic).

We left having paid $48 for Isaac and I to watch a movie while Mike and Riley walked. Sigh. I think Miss Roo needs to grow up for another year or so before we try that again. Live and learn. She wasn't bad at all. She's just so 2. She got restless. Despite missing the movie she assured me all the way home she "had a gooood day!".