Thank you so much for you supportive comments today. What a huge ray of sunshine you’all are! As tough as this eternal winter has been (on everyone! you included!), there have been moments of levity. And by “moments of levity”, I mean, “Kelly makes me laugh until I pee my pants”. Sometimes she knows she’s being funny, and sometimes she’s just quirky. And sometimes she cries for days, because she’s very good at being 6. But what I love most about Kelly is she never lets you see it coming. I LOVE being surprised.
Kelly was assigned a project to be done at school during her Health & Nutrition Unit. She had to make a 4-day menu. I can’t tell if she was being funny, or just? Adventuresome? This kid would eat Mac N Cheese for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so I’m pretty sure she was going for the A+ when she stated she’d like “Camel” for lunch with a side of “Duck”. It goes well with cheese tortellini and peaches. And eggs. And yogurt. And snow peas.
I couldn’t stifle my screams of laughter when I flipped through this project and saw she’d like to have Bighorn Sheep and Grits for dinner. The pizza and cornbread as side dishes only added to my joy. Cornbread. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.
Artichokes, peas, and tuna would be a healthy snack? Far different from the grapes, cheese, and crackers I gave her today. Geez Momma, spice it up a little, would ya’? EVERYBODY ELSE gets to have artichokes for their afternoon snack!
Day #3 included her usual: broccoli, yogurt, cheese, a taco, a roll, and…um? What am I forgetting? YES, she loves to have EEL with her dinner. We culinary Hoosiers…known for our sweet corn and eel. Delish. This one is my fault. The girls know I ate eel several times in Asia, and they love a particularly funny story about the time I was attacked by eels on our honeymoon. I was in Mexico at the time, so I guess it makes sense to make eel tacos?
After a good, deep belly-laugh (and ingesting Kelly’s grade, which wasn’t horrible, but wasn’t her top performance…hmm…perhaps next time she’s asked to make a 4 day menu, she shouldn’t stop at Day #3? But then again, after looking at her work, I’m assuming she was FULL), we sat down to watch a few minutes of “Les Miserables”. I’m carefully skipping around, showing them the more gentle scenes, introducing them to the songs, the characters, and Victor Hugo’s plot. Kelly is not one for complex plots, even though she can 7-degree with the best of them:
Kelly: I don’t want to watch Les Mis. I don’t understand it. Well, I kind of understand it. I don’t understand what they’re saying, but I can watch their faces and figure out what’s going on.
Sara: Kelly, let me make it really simple for you: Les Mis is just like “High School Musical”…for adults. It’s the adult version of “High School Musical”. The only difference in Les Mis, is the bad guy jumps in a aqueduct and dies.
There you have it. My children have a full, culturally-enriched education. They know how to pair their pasture-based proteins with grains, and they are the best critical evaluators of classical literature I’ve ever met. Had Javert only sung, “For so it is written, on the DOORWAY to PARADISE…”, while singing and dancing with his friends on a basketball court, Sara’s analogy would have been spot on. Well, that, and Gabriella Montez would have to be a dead prostitute…but let’s not split fine hairs.
Happy Weekending! And Bon Appetit!