Category: tweens

Tangled

by Karen, posted in family, local fun, movies, tweens

If you’ll forgive the tired old cliché, Tangled is a “coming of age story” for Rapunzel, Flynn, and even (in a weird way, a “coming of old age” ) for Rapunzel’s evil, passive-aggressive step mother (who continues the long tradition of evil stepmothers in Disney Movies.).

What’s totally great about Rapunzel is that she is a normal looking girl. This is huge for a Disney movie.  They have deviated from whatever mathematical formula that they have applied to prior princesses that make their faces flawless and perfectly symmetrical and give them bodies that are anatomically impossible. You know, like Barbie.

What’s also great about Rapunzel is that she saves herself from Flynn (the would-be hero), when he breaks into her, um… house, and without giving too much more away, she repeatedly saves herself in other situations thereafter. Flynn doesn’t save her; she saves him.

The horse Maximus and Flynn have a comical, sibling-type relationship going on throughout the movie which was so much fun to watch that it elicited a few disapproving “Mom! You sure laugh loud!”‘s from my tween.

This movie also brought to mind a few other clichés: “If you love something, set it free,” embodied by Rapunzel. “If it doesn’t come back, hunt it down and kill it,” embodied by the evil stepmother.

The lights that are launched annually recall the tune “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine”, which is reflective of Rapunzel’s optimism in spite of the deck being completely stacked against her…and I mean: Completely. Stacked. Against. Her.

Then there’s the frying pan, which is perhaps a nod to the woman who can “bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan”. At one point, Flynn asks: “A frying pan! Who knew?” A woman knew, that’s who!

Don’t get me wrong; all of these cliches are comforting, familiar. They help to make the movie accessible, and overall, EXCELLENT. Bring your kids and go see it (but try not to embarrass them by laughing “too loud” at Maximus and Flynn). 🙂

Making a list

by Karen, posted in family, tweens
Back in 2007, when there was still one believer in the family

I’ve been working on my Christmas gift list recently, and I’ve warned the children that Christmas will be, um, leaner this year than in the past, so they should be prepared. I guess I kind of went a little overboard last year, and am trying not to repeat that this year, especially since the big guy in the red suit won’t be putting in an appearance. This year, we know.

I don’t know what kind of a reaction that I expected from them, but as so often happens, my kids surprised me.

“Oh, okay, Mom.” That was it, from both kids. I guess I expected some questions, at least, but no, they were fine with it. Moved right on.

I guess it’s just me then, feeling bad. This is our first personal “Year Without a Santa Claus”. Last year, right after the holiday my daughter approached me and uttered those words that every mother dreads (but every father welcomes):  “Mom, you and dad are Santa Claus, right?”

Sigh.

After I told her to go play and I’d get back to her, I furtively placed a call to my husband at work, relayed the devastating question, asking, “What do you think? She’s only ten! Should I tell her the truth?” and he said, “Of course! She’s ten! We should have told her years ago!”.

And right there, folks, is the difference between fathers and mothers (if I may be so bold as to apply our parental reactions to that of all parents).

I told her the truth.

She took it well. At the end, she said, “But the Easter Bunny, she’s real, right?”

🙂

Fun with tweens on the weekend

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, family, friends, local fun, shopping, tweens

My tween daughter invited a friend to spend the day, and as the 7 hours loomed ominously unfilled ahead of us, I wondered:  What the heck should we do?  

First, I decided to do something for me: I had a 20% coupon to Kennebooks in Kennebunk so that was our first stop. A quick check of the local paper told me that they were having an Open House that started at 10:30am, so it was just me and my tween for this. When we arrived, there was a kids “author event” so we headed down for that, but it turned out to be for littler kids, so we did some browsing for an hour. I bought a book for a friend for Christmas.

Sigh. I love to be with the books. But I digress…

Next, we picked up the friend and headed for the library. They browsed the shelves, and checked out some books, and then harassed me until I gave up and said, “Okay, yes! I’m ready to leave too!”.  While we were there, we found a new cookbook called Betty Crocker’s Just the two of us, and they spied a recipe while flipping through it that they wanted to make. Since we had all of the ingredients already, I agreed.

Lunch was next, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I took the easy way out: McDonald’s was right nearby, and since it was almost 1pm and they were “starving”, we headed there next. In my defense, we haven’t eaten McD’s food in months, so here’s hoping that it didn’t do us too much damage. We drove through and brought it home to eat it (their choice).

Then we made the Double Chocolate Snack Cake.

Izzy and Ivy, the bakers

They did a great job! I helped a little but they were really in charge of the recipe (I was in charge of the oven) and it turned out really great. We ate most of it fairly quickly.

After that, they hula hooped and played on the swing in the yard, fed bread to the chickens, and played a few hands of cards: Uno, War.

Then, they actually read the books that they checked out of the library for a little while.
I had to run to Hannaford’s and they were thrilled to come with me. They got free cookies at the bakery, and free samples of cheese and turkey at the deli. They even watched the cart full of groceries after I realized that the most important thing that I went there to buy, I had forgotten, so I had to go back and get it and run through the cashier’s line again. (Hey, at least I remembered before I got back home; I figured that I was ahead of the game!)

When we got back, I made them spaghetti for supper, and after we finished eating they had another little bit of time to play.

They watched a little TV: one episode of iCarly, and one episode of Drake and Josh. Then they played some songs on the electric keyboard for a while.

When it was time for her friend to go home, they had even picked up after themselves!

It was a great day; I even was able to get my 2,000 words written in between everything else. Life is good!

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Garden update: November

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, fitness, gardening, raising chickens, tweens
Pumpkins gone wild!

Remember the (multiple) posts I’ve written about how much chickens love pumpkins? Well my husband did a wild and crazy thing: he bartered with the local Walmart and struck a world-class deal to help rid them of all of their end of season pumpkins. (After all, as soon as Halloween is over they have to make room for those Christmas decorations! 🙂 )

He came home with is 4-Runner stuffed to the gills with pumpkins of every size, shape, color, and some even with painted features (one had a frog!). The chickens are now in pumpkin heaven, and as a side benefit, our yard is very extravagantly decorated for fall. 🙂

Since we were having a warm day in November, I decided that would be relatively painless to check out what was left of the garden. I was thinking I’d harvest the dregs of the carrots and beets and check on the lettuce.

Well, the lettuce is not growing very much yet; maybe we got it into the ground a couple of weeks later than we should have (totally my fault). Hopefully there will be some that is harvestable and edible before the snow comes. The carrots were a big surprise though. Since I wasn’t having much luck pulling them up by the green above-ground fronds, I gave up and started to harvest them like potatoes: I dug into the ground under them and pushed them up through the soil. I couldn’t believe how many of them were lurking under there, just minding their own business. Had I not gone in after them, regardless of the presence of waving fronds, I would have missed at least half of them.

Up for next weekend: carrot soup.

P.S. Chickens also love carrot tops and beet greens.

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Buon Natale

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, italian, local fun, tweens
Izzy at Buon Natale

I took my daughter to Buon Natale, the Italian Christmas bazaar at St. Peter’s Church on Federal St. in Portland. This was something my Italian grandmother always took me to when I was growing  up, and it remains a happy childhood memory for me to this day. I wanted to share this with my daughter.

It was at the same site as the Italian Feast was in the summer. It was held inside the church, which usually would be a good thing, since November in Portland is often a cruel month.

Not today though; it was 64 degrees when we arrived about 12 noon. It easily could have been held outdoors. Inside, we were greeted by a nice lady that said, “Did you park in the Rite Aid parking lot? They’ll tow you if you did!” We assured her that we had not, and thanked her for her concern.

There was a “garage sale” room, with tables set up that had been well picked over by the time we arrived. The doors opened at 8am, so it was well more than half over. We browsed a bit in the craft show section, but then we got down to the real business of visiting any Italian venue: the food.

They had a similar menu to what was offered at the feast in the summer. Ziti with meatballs, meatball subs, Sicilian style pizza, eggplant parmigiana sub, and pasta fagioli were the main entrees. After much discussion (and viewing of what other people were ordering) we settled on the pasta fagioli to split.

For three bucks, we got a bowl big enough to fill us both up for lunch. It was the best pasta fagioli ever. 🙂

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For dessert? What else would these two Italian girls get?  Tiramisu, of course! We split that as well, but afterward, we second guessed that choice. “We should have both got one!” my girl pointed out. Note to self for next time: to each her own tiramisu. 🙂

Secretariat

by Karen, posted in family, local fun, movies, tweens

I took my daughter to see this movie with a bit of trepidation.

Secretariat

First of all, it is 2 hours and 3 minutes long, a very long time for a tween to sit still and remain engaged, especially in the uncomfy old theater seats.

Second, although it is a Disney movie, it isn’t a kids’ movie per se, so this is the first sort of adult drama that I’d taken her to see.

Why was I willing to take the risk? Well, it’s about horses, and my daughter loves horses, so that made it seem like more of a calculated risk.  After purchasing the requisite order of nachos that my daughter needs to maximize her movie-watching experience, we entered the theater and settled in.

Fortunately, the movie was great. It already had the presence of Diane Lane going for it, but all of the other actors were also well cast. Like a good book, it pulled us in right from the first moments of the film and kept our interest until the end.

If only they had given out little plastic horsies as favors; then our day would have been complete. 🙂

Midlife crisis, part one: losing my mind

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, Midlife Crisis, tweens

I was standing in the kitchen talking to my husband last week, and he told me he was irritated because of something I’d told him earlier in the week that turned out not to be true. 

What was it? I sure don’t know. I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now. He remembered the (alleged) conversation in great detail. As I stood there listening to him recount what I said, I thought, “One of us must be crazy (and it’s not me)”!

I am quite sure that this conversation never happened. He is quite sure that it did. So, we sensibly backed off and let it go, nervous about where this particular road might take us, should we choose to pursue it.

Then today, I got to the parking garage at work and started to gather up my multitude of bags: bag with paperwork and reading material, check. Oversized insulated bag with my breakfast, lunch, and dinner, check. Pocketbook….pocketbook…with calendar, money, scissors, teabags, special cloth to clean eyeglasses, other miscellaneous detritus…NOT HERE!

I think back, retrace my morning steps. I am sure I carried my pocketbook and old navy plastic bag (with extra miscellaneous stuff) to the car this morning, as I stepped over my tween daughter who was sitting on the floor (in full tween drama mode) blocking my exit to flee the house.

Breathe. Breathe.

I call my husband, to share the insanity. I tell him that I can’t find my pocketbook. He says, “It’s right here, hanging on the back of the kitchen chair…next to an Old Navy bag”.

HOW could this be true? Yet I was faced with the undisputable evidence that what I thought I did this morning in no way resembled what I actually did do.

Plus, now I’m worried that my husband was indeed right in the first example above, and I was wrong. Oh-oh.

At this point, instead of “I told you so!”  he then said, kindly: “Why don’t you sit in your car and meditate for  a few minutes?” I did have time to do this now, since I’d come to Portland early to shop at the farmers market, but my farmers market money was home in my pocketbook.

Breathe. So Hum. Contemplate being unconscious in my own life.

The rule of tree…I mean three

by Karen, posted in education, friends, Someone's gotta say it, tweens

So, although I’d been complaining in an earlier post about the homework my daughter’s teachers had been assigning to the parents…I mean, the kids… I have to revisit my resentment some in light of the unexpected gifts that one of these assignments has had for us.

The (dreaded) Tree Project is the assignment to which I am referring (any mother who has had a child attending our local junior high school in the past 20 years or so will be familiar with this). After I heard some of the other moms talking about their efforts to help, like: “I spent 2 1/2 hours one Saturday afternoon driving my daughter around to get leaves!” for example (after I’d walked my daughter around the school yard for 15 minutes, got a mosquito bite, and called it a day), I was shamed off the bench and into the woods to help find leaves.

Toward this end, I asked a couple of work colleagues if they had any interesting trees in their yards that they’d be willing to ravage for leaves, nuts (extra credit!), bark, (same!), berries (same!)…you get the idea.

Well. They sure did.

  1. My friend Jody produced Pin Cherry leaves and then took a chance and loaned us a treasured little book, Advice from a Tree by Ilan Shamir. Last weekend we read this book together on the couch (with the TV off!), and talked about what it meant to “Be content with your natural beauty” and to “Let your limbs sway and dance in the breezes“…oh yes, and to “Drink plenty of water“…even trees know this!
  2. My friend Sheri produced a Beech Tree leaf with the coveted beechnut to go along with it. She also sent Izzy and me a copy of the tree poem, which I am planning to read with her this weekend.
  3. My friend Doreen brought leaves from a Quaking Aspen tree.  Izzy now has all of her pages filled in her Leaf Project book, which was her goal. The gathering is done!

So, these are the tree gifts: a book, a poem…and remembering what a great gift good friends are. 🙂

Homework

by Karen, posted in education, family, Someone's gotta say it, tweens

Well, after only the first month of school we’ve already had 4 homework assignments…for the parents.

  1. The first day of school brings the myriad of (redundant) forms that we have to fill out for each child every year, regardless of whether the information has changed even one iota from last year, regardless of whether it is the same for both (or multiple) children, except for their names and dates of birth.  Here’s an idea: Let us do it online! They let us send lunch money online now, and they send us school notices online as well (so that we have to subject our own printers to wear and tear, use our own ink and paper to print out notices and forms. . .but I digress). Why can’t we have our New School Year Forms online, then update only what needs updating and email them to the school? Time saved: approximately 2-5 hours (or more, depending on how many children you have and how complex their medical histories, etc. might be).
  2. The next assignment we got was this:  In a million words or less, write an essay about your child. Enough said.
  3. Then, a Current Events homework assignment came home for the student, which says the parent must assist them in these projects. Weekly. If it can’t be done without the parents’ help, clearly it is too advanced for most 6th graders to undertake. To me, this translates to: Not Appropriate Homework for a Sixth Grader. Am I wrong?
  4. The Leaf Project. Anyone who has lived in my town for the past decade or two (at least) is familiar with this one. Now, I have to be fair: it isn’t explicitly stated that parents have any involvement, but hey, it’s not like the 6th graders can drive themselves around looking for the 20 different types of leaves they need!

How do you feel about getting homework from your tween-agers’ teachers?

Girls’ Night

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, family, friends, local fun, restaurants, tweens

On the (rare) days when the male members of the family are off at work, but the females have the day off, we have a Girls’ Night. Today, Girls’ Nights started early, at 7:24AM. The men were out for the day so the females were left to  our own pursuits. This is what my daughter and I did today:

  1. Breakfast: Cream of wheat for Izzy and egg white omelet with spinach, mushrooms, and roasted red peppers for me. OJ and coffee, respectively.
  2. Met up with friends at Cafe Perfecto in Kennebunk. We split a gingerbread muffin. We ate it too quickly to photograph it. It was goooooooooooooooooooooooooood. 🙂
  3. Next, browsing at Kennebooks. We bought some cards, some books, and a really cool mushroom shaped eraser with the sharpener built right in. 

    Coolest mushroom eraser/sharpener ever!
  4. Home for lunch: PB&H on homemade bread for me; grilled cheese and bacon on whole wheat bread for Iz. Then she caught up with a friend on the phone, while I caught up on the laundry, chicken tasks, and dishes. Yay.
  5. Next, North Berwick Farmers Market. My friend Rebecca was there so we got to visit a bit. Lucky for us, it was the day of their Pie Contest, and we got to try a piece of the winning pie, baked by a 9 year old girl; very impressive. Besides pie, we got some fudge, some granola, herbs to mix with oil for bread-dipping, oatmeal coconut cookies…hmmm, seems like something is missing. What is it? Oh! The (token healthy food that was the excuse for going to the farmers market) apple! I ate that at the next stop.
  6. Izzy had a riding lesson and I spent the time in the car catching up on the last 2 days of newspapers that I hadn’t gotten to yet.
  7. At 6Pm, lesson over, we headed to Johnson’s Seafood and Steak. This is our new favorite restaurant, partly because it’s right on the way home after riding, but mostly because of the pumpkin cheesecake. OMG. It’s worth going just for that.
  8. Finally, home for a movie night. We watched The Clique. Izzy had seen it before and wanted to watch it again with me. Great mother-daughter movie.

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That’s it.  She’s gone to bed; I’m getting ready to. We had a great day. 🙂