Festival of Mirror-Based Coruscation

Tonight Matisyahu, the Hasidic reggae guy who sings this song, shares his annual Festival of Light celebration with Portland, a holiday show that I'm told had previously been reserved for NYC audiences. In the past few weeks I heard little bits and pieces about the four-foot dreidel he uses for this set, then today I learned that it is a four-foot disco ball dreidel which left me wondering what it must look like. ?. I could have just looked at various places on the internet but I just hadn't gotten around to it. Consequently without any effort at all I was able to see what it looks like at our very own State Theatre.

I love it! Ziggy-yiggy-yo viggy-yiggy-yo!


Photos courtesy of the State Theatre.

Blaze Praise

I wouldn't normally put a candle on the tree, but I'm in love with Jimmy's craft project of the day, it sure puts the pretty in "toilet paper tube."

He's been under the weather for a week, but thank hoozit I think my muffin is finally starting to emerge from the exhausting wrath of Dr. NO!

Messy Diet of the All Too Quiet

You know something's up when you've been able to write a 20 minute email uninterrupted. This happened today, things were too quiet so I got up to investigate, and found Jimmy sitting in this:



Apolo-cheese for the fuzzy image, but this is sorta how Jimmy was looking covered in Parmesan.



I was just happy his paws weren't in the evertempting bear bottle of honey.

Christmas with the Alpacas

Earlier this week I was at RSVP on Forest Avenue and my eyes caught a flyer for Christmas with Alpacas at Estabrook's, a greenhouse 3 towns up. I was reminded of an Alpaca Fair I attended several years back at the Portland Expo, there I met a lot of cool people and it was fun.

When I picked Jimmy up at school on Friday I couldn't help but notice that his hands were freezing. It was time for mittens, you bad mommy!

Jimmy's been cranky all week. This morning I thought of the Alpaca Show and how he might enjoy a pair of soft fiber mittens. Fully expecting a screechy, high-toned "NO!!!!" I was caught by surprise with an enthusiastic nod when I suggested Christmas with Alpacas. We were on our way.

Estabrook's must have done some heavy advertising, there were parking issues and guys directing traffic. It was a lot of fanfare for, just a handful of alpacas. Oh well.

Inside one of the greenhouses was a craft fair, hurrah! Alpaca mittens, here we come.



The items were beautiful, and always pricey. I was reduced to peering distantly for small mittens, the vendors were very aggressive (but not as aggressive as the roaming Santa outside. No Santa! He does not want to hold your pinky! Back off!!!)

At one end we found a table of free cookies, hot cider, cocoa, and a man scraping a steaming white substance from a chaffing dish into another bucket, griping about how he thought he was going to be ladling chili and oatmeal for guests, and not doing this (whatever that was.) Jimmy chose an M&M cookie.


M&M Alpaca Crackah

At the other end was a really nice craft table for kids, Jimmy sat down at once but it took some cajoling to get him to do the crafts.



I tried a few different seats and stations, but ultimately he was most interested in the cookie.


Alpaca Slackah

Behind us there were women spinning alpaca yarn.



And a baby alpaca pen.



And I never distantly peered a set of children's alpaca mittens, not that I would have been able to afford them. Oh well!

Inside the main building were some great Christmas trees!

And on the way out we caught one last glimpse of the alpacas.



All in all, it was....moderate! Malpaca Christmas!

Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes

A year of Facebook stati, you can get yours here.

Putting the Activity in Nactivity Set

This is the cutest nativity scene ever.









The angel flies like an airplane, sounds like an airplane, and then buzzes away with the 3rd king on the back of his Little People motorcycle.


BBBLLLVVVVVRrrrrooooommmmmm....




Back on the shelf.

A hit! Can't wait to dig this set out year after year.

People, Places, and Things

People, Places, and Things (and Links)

It's December! My favorite month! Self-admitted holiday nerd here, I love Christmas culture and the Christmas Version of anything, of music, of movies, of decorations, of commercialism, of dishware, of parties, of menus, of socks, of names, of saran wrap, of scarves, of pasta, of everything!!! I was recently spotted spending a teeny weeny non-fortune on festive eBay sweaters and vests for Jimmy, I started fearing there were not enough days left to wear them all so I stopped. And shifted to the lobster embroidered pants. I'm also perusing this list of Fairs and Festivals.

Ice. It's where some people and princesses skate, we are already planning on attending Disney Princesses on Ice and I just learned that Smuckers Stars on Ice is also coming to the Cumberland County Civic Center, this time with Dancing with the Stars (and that Olympics-thing)'s Evan Lysacek. I'm seriously considering tickets, after a season of the über-nerdsome Skating with the Stars I might be jonesing for something out of Johnny Weir(d)'s closet. (Truth be told, I'd be thrilled if Jimmy pursued the sequined arts, but at the mo [<--ugh, shoot me] it's looking more like the train, tractor, trailer, and truck arts.)

Banana bread, cookies, and fudge. Holiday treats from Minnesota, thanks Sandy!!!

Greenlight Studios. Indoor playground where Jimmy and I spent the morning after an unexpected day off school, also where I realized that we're definitely out of Toddlerhood and firmly into the Preschool phase (the joint is for 0-6 year olds, Jimmy wasn't the oldest one there but I think morning hours mostly draw the youngie youngsters.)

First Impressions. They can be deceiving, like when I mistakenly hated the movie The Polar Express. The first time watching this film definitely stressed me out, but now that I know how everything ends I know that it is fantastic. The story and the animation are great, and the details, the details, the details! I've never heard Tom Hanks do such strong character acting (and this coming from someone who was Hank'd out not too long ago, as seen in the March 27, 2006 post of an old myspace page, entitled "Hank'd Out":

Dear Tom Hanks,

Please stop trying to tack on more "ranges" to your resume and bring back Turner and Hooch.

Signed,

Your Boston Accent Sucks

I guess I was watching a little Leonardo, er, Catch Me If You Can at the time.) But in the Polar Express, when the elves sing for Santa's entrance, my word. Bravo Robert Zemeckis for a succinct, thrilling, creepy, touching, and unexpectedly moving Christmas movie. I hesitate to provide this link because the quality isn't so hot, but on our dvd it's spectacular. I suppose Chris Van Allsburg deserves some credit for writing the book, not that I've read it, a predicament I hope to remedy this season, and every holiday season (I have read that you can get the CD where Liam Neeson reads the book FOR you on Christmas Eve, or...whenever...and I have Sarah to thank for that bit of inspiring tradition-making info.) And finally, hello, TRAINS. Jimmy likes this movie even more than he did last year, we've watched it 5-6 times already this season, I know there was some talk with his aunt and uncle about attending the Polar Express event at the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad, I'm hoping it comes about!

Thermometer, Jimmy's latest obsession, thankfully he's feeling rather chipper while dealing with axillary temps of 99+°, perhaps it was the OJ & Chicken Stock smoothie concocted after he refused Daddy's homemade chicken soup. He didn't know it was a poultry smoothie, he thought it was just orange juice. Sneaky, yes. Disgusting, outrageously, but these are two life elements one must deal with once becoming a parent. We know most people would have chosen the soup, but we're not talking about most people, this is (warning: bias ahead) the most precious creature on the planet and his Mumma gets a little uneasy about dealing with illnesses. I've worked hard at giving and maintaining his healthy body, he's rarely sick, but thankfully my uneasiness soon turned into fascination, how the fever is evidence that his healthy body IS working, and how proud I feel for allowing the fever to do its job and relying on natural treatments rather than interfering with Tylenol or Motrin. All the research I did, even the more mainstream sites advised that these meds are largely unnecessary, but there are a couple sites I'd like to thank. This USA Today article, particularly its two final lines which reference the input of Dr. Ian Paul,

Sleeping children, he says, already are comfortable. Children with temperatures of 104 degrees almost always feel miserable, he says, but there's no "magic temperature" at which drugs are urgent.

...a phrase that met my eyes just moments after Jimmy had crawled into my lap and fallen asleep, a rare midday occurrence. And I'd like to tip my hat to SouleMama, last June I read her entry about "Feel Better Pops" and mmyeah, at the time my eyeballs did roll a bit because I was like "this is a tremendously popular blogger who maintains a monstrous following, can't she come up with a snappier title for medicinal popsicles than 'Feel Better Pops?' Lame!" Then I spent about 3-4 minutes trying to come up with something catchier and guess what. Nuthin'. Truth is, the name she gave the pops exactly fits her style, and the rest of the post was loaded with sense and simplicity and it was memorable enough for me to check back in with it today, to see how my fellow Portlandah dealt with childhood illnesses. Her answer is:

We don't really do a lot...when someone isn't feeling well, our focus is on Time, Water, and Love. Oftentimes, that's really all I think is needed. That, and the knowledge about and belief in our bodies. Understanding what a fever is, for example, and how the human body works can make it so much less scary for little ones when it's happening...

Time, Water, and Love. With the exception of Chicken OJ, that's all we've needed too.