Leg-oooooooo Noooooo!

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for First Aid

I am what you call a Wal-Mart frequent shopper/walker.  My face appears on their security tape entering and leaving their store more often than anyone in town.  It is not that I am an avid shopper; it’s just that I find myself with many separate hours to kill while I wait for ballet lessons, violin lessons, Boy Scouts, basketball or whatever to be over.   Because of this, I am acutely aware of their clearance aisles and their ever changing rotation and migration of merchandise and have a closet similar to a Wal-Mart warehouse.

At Christmas, not trusting anyone over four feet five inches, the eight-year-old had me put his many Wal-Mart gift cards in the safe.  This served a dual purpose. It prevented impulse buying on his part, and I could see which defective toys made it back to the return counter at Wal-Mart after Christmas.  On one of my recent walking tours, I noticed all the Christmas junk toys were gone, and the good stuff like Legos, were now being marked down.  Time to retrieve the boy and the gift cards.

As the Wal-Mart greeter called me by name, we headed for the toy aisle.   As usual, the clearance Legos were Legos no one wanted.  The eight-year-old headed straight for the good stuff.  When he showed me the box, three things immediately jumped out at me, first the price.  When did a toy cost as much a mid-size compact?  Second, how can 512 Legos fit into such a small package?  And third, why was a grenade wired to the box? 

I had promised myself that I would bite my tongue before I said anything negative about his selection.  It was his money, his choice, his Lego.  With my teeth clamped tightly on my tongue, he put his selection in the shopping cart. Why is it that every Wal-Mart has at least one cart with a wheel that is locked, lopsided, or lists to the left and I always end up with that one? We lurched toward the checkout stand with the loaded Legos.

 
As the cashier scanned and removed the detonating device from the Lego box, the eight-year-old pulled out his gift cards.  Card number one had either been next to my cell phone or had been used and forgotten because it was blank.  I bite my tongue.  Card number two was ok as was card three and four and my tongue began to swell. Card number five was for McDonald’s and so could not be used to purchase Legos, and card number six completed the purchase with $5.22 to spare.

 
“What’s the matter Mom? Are you crying?” 

“No, just bit my tongue.”

Next week, The Lego Wars

 

Senior curb Jumping Reaches New Heights

By Jody Worsham
All rights reserved for helmets, harnesses, and tire re-alignment

I can drive. I can. In fact, I’ve been doing it for quite a number of years. I can stop, pass, and even turn, as long as it is to the left. Right turns give me a bit of a problem. If I were driving an English car, this would not be the case; however, I drove an American car and my right turns have never been quite right. I think I may be left-brained.

Today I seem to be suffering from right-turn-itis more than usual. After picking up the six-year-old from school I had to travel to the next school to pick up the nine-year-old which necessitated a right turn. Possibly due to the strong winds we have been having, I managed to bump over the curb as I made my right turn. This resulted in a small spill of Sunny D the six-year-old was attempting to drink, a mini volcanic eruption from my morning cup of coffee still sitting in the cup holder, and squeals of delight from the dare devil in the back.


After picking up the nine-year-old I had to make another right turn as we headed home. This time the eye glasses bounced out of the dash compartment onto the floorboard and the nine-year-old said “That’s once.” “No, that’s twice”, corrected the six-year-old and they both giggled and snickered.

At home I dropped off the six-year-old, had the nine-year-old change into her ballet clothes and we left for class. We made a quick detour to check out the gymnastics schedule. This was a left, left, a wide turn to the right, drive, drive, and then a turn to the left into the parking lot. We got the schedules and started to leave.

I do not know why parking lots to not allow sufficient room to negotiate proper turns. It doesn’t require that much more cement. Right, bump-bump, glasses again to the floor, young hands quickly grasping the door handles amidst “Whoppee” and we were off to ballet class and from the back seat I heard “That’s three.”

As I was passing Mickey D’s, I heard the Mocha Frappe siren calling. I tried to resist but it was a left hand turn and I had no will power remaining. I think it got bumped out at the gym.
I had forgotten the drive-through required a right hand turn. Bump bump, and bumpity-bump, the back tires were involved this time. Knowing that my curb jumping was going to be reported to hubby, I decided to diffuse the situation immediately.

“My goodness, I seem to be hitting a lot of curbs today; how many was that?” I asked nonchalantly.
“You mean in the past two hours?”
“Yes.”
“Five,” replied the nine-year-old, “but that’s only since I’ve been in the car. This morning…”
“Of course this car is a bit wider than what I have been used to.”
“You’ve been driving this car ever since I can remember.”
“Yes, but the curbs haven’t always been where they are now.”
“You mean you’ve completely knocked out a whole curb before?”
“Ok, here we are and it’s a left turn.”
“Do you want me to keep counting as you pull away? That’s going to be a right turn, you know.”
“Hurry, you don’t want to be late for your class.”

As I left the ballet studio, I could feel her eyes watching so I made a wide turn to the left and took a short scenic trip down the dead-end street. Luckily there was a circle drive at the end which curved to the left.

My husband is constantly having my tires re-aligned. I told him it was just part of the learning curve; I only recently started senior curb jumping.

Swan Lake/Shrek or Duck Duck Goose

“Swan Lake/ Shrek” or Duck Duck Goose
By Jody Worsham, All rights reserved to buy camouflaged tights!

My four-year-old has taken ballet all year. His dance instructor wanted to infuse some culture into our little community so rather than do the customary recital of disjointed dance numbers, she chose to introduce them to an actual ballet, “ Swan Lake”. Swan Lake is the story of a beautiful princess who has been placed under a spell by an evil countess who is afraid the princess will be more beautiful than her daughter and thus win the heart of the prince. To prevent this, she turns the princess into a swan each morning at sunrise. Only at night can the princess be a real person.

“What’s a swan?” asks the four year old after hearing the story line.
“It’s a big white bird”, I replied.

At first he seemed confused; then his eyes lit up. “Oh, I get it, like in ‘Shrek’ only she’s Big Bird during the day and a pretty princess at night!”
His teacher cast him as the squire to the prince. “Like Donkey in 'Shrek'. I’m the donkey.”

"No, you are not Donkey. You are a squire. You carry the bow and arrows for the prince”, I quickly told him.

He told everyone that he was a squire and he was supposed to shoot all the baby swans with his bow and arrows. His father was thrilled! The mothers of the baby swans were in a panic! I was disappointed that after paying for all those lessons, he wasn’t going to get to dance. To please me and reassure the swan mothers that no swans would be harmed during the ballet, she put him in the Russian Dance, very athletic and not gender specific to appease his father.

Rehearsals began, and costumes were ordered. Obviously the Chinese do not recognize our system for sizing. Every costume for one class was the same size, only the labels had been changed to read XS, S, M. L. I took three of the costumes home, cut them in half, and added two inches to each one so they would come close to fitting. The other set of costumes must have come from Overstocked Midget Strippers. To bridge the plunging bodice gap for the no-cleavage five-year-olds, I took nine costumes home and sewed scraps of green boa feathers across the front of each costume. My sewing room looked like a flock of green parrots had molted there.

At least his costume fit; I had made it myself in January, but by May he had grown two inches and gained two pounds. His trousers became knickers. I spray painted pink ballet slippers black. He drew the line at wearing tights so I told him they were really soccer sock-tights. He was ok with that.

Dress rehearsal arrived. There were 95 assorted swans, ladies of the court, Russian dancers, prospective brides, a prince, and his little squire. The majority of the dancers were under the age of seven. It was like herding ducks. Feathers were flying everywhere as the swans swooped and twirled. After the first scene, the stage looked like we were doing Dr. Zhivago, all white. I was recruited to help change scenery and sweep away any loose feathers between acts. Amazingly, everyone remembered their entrances and their dance and most of the feathers were still attached to the costumes by the time the rehearsal ended.

The full length “Swan Lake ” usually takes about two and a half hours. We were doing the Cliff Notes Version and with three intermissions, it only took an hour and fifteen minutes. To their credit, everyone danced their best. My four-year-old danced the first part of his Russian dance with great confidence. The second half of the dance was a lot faster with much slapping of knees, heels, and hands. He ceased looking at the audience and stared at the feet of the young lady on his right as he followed her every move, and just one beat behind! This, of course, made him the last person still moving after the others had stopped. His own solo at age four! The audience was most impressed as evidenced by their applause, hoots, and shouts as he finished.

The curtain call had been carefully rehearsed but the excitement was too much for the Russian Dancers, still heady from their almost standing ovation. The Red Menace charged the stage to take their bow early and was only briefly halted when the dance instructor grabbed a little Russian Dancer under each arm and bodily blocked their way. Not to be stopped, the remaining Russians made an end run around the teacher and took the stage and bowed, and bowed, and bowed. And my little Russian was right in the middle. Move over, Baryshnikov, you may have competition from one little Texan!

Our “Swan Lake / Shrek” with overtures of Duck Duck Goose may not be Bolshoi quality…yet, but we are getting there! Merde! And on to next year’s ballet.

I wonder if a five-year-old is too young to play Romeo?