Seuss!

The Drama Club play for this year is Seussical, and Adlani and Aliya are both working hard on their songs.  Aliya just got promoted from a General Cast Bird Girl to a Lead Bird Girl, even though she didn’t originally try out for a lead.  She is really good at learning the songs, so I don’t know why she didn’t want to be a lead, but then again, it did take me 41 years to be able to sing karaoke without having a full-blown panic attack.

I won’t be able to videotape the performance this year because I’ll be in Costa Rica, but I will be helping out with some of the rehearsals

Wicked Birthday

As tradition dictates, we had Aliya’s birthday dinner at Bugaboo Creek.  As an extra surprise, I was in Providence on Friday for work and I saw signs for an upcoming performance of Wicked, which Aliya and I saw two years ago.  We loved the show and we’ve been wanting to see it again.  I checked with the box office to see if the show was sold out, and there were great seats available so I bought 2 tickets for Aliya’s birthday.  I’m really excited about going, so it’s a gift for me too!

Aliya wrote a thank-you note on her white board – so cute!

“Dear mom + dad but mostle mom i hope you get a chance to read this iven thow it is have way in my dirty room this was the best birthday ever and all never forget it and the presint was iven beter, i cant belive i am going to wiked with mom again.  You gise are the best parentes a girl cold want, and mom thankyou so much for the sleeepover it was realy fun and dad thanks for trieng to crush my party that was cute, you guies are the best of the best.
Love your birthday girl, Aliya
My Parents Rock!  Ouyaaa!”

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Three Strikes

Well, they can’t say I didn’t warn them.  All of the teachers at school think Aliya is just *wonderful* and I made it perfectly clear that Adlani did not inherit the “Teacher’s Pet” gene.  A) He’s a boy, B) He’s 10 months younger than Aliya was when she was in kindergarten, and C) He’s Adlani. 
Yesterday we got the bad news three times that Adlani is being disruptive, not listening, and not following the rules.  I don’t know if it was coincidental or a coordinated effort, but first the bus driver told Ben that Adlani had run off during the evacuation drill.  Then Adlani’s kindergarten teacher called and told Ben what was going on in the classroom, which I later heard roughly half of.  Finally, his music teacher called and left a message that she had to have Adlani sit out of class twice for being disruptive. 

I honestly have no idea how to deal with this.  I think Adlani figured out that by adopting the “class clown” persona, he could get positive attention from the other kids by being silly.  The problem is that he’s disrupting the class, he does little or none of his work during school, and I’m sure he’s driving the teachers insane.  I asked our pediatrician why he acts this way with a group but is a completely different kid one-on-one, and he said, “because he doesn’t have an audience when it’s just the two of you.” 

I’m at a loss.  I just hope he gets his act together soon so he doesn’t end up repeating kindergarten.  I thought he was off the payroll. 
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American Boy

Sometimes when I’m joking around with the kids they take me seriously, like the time Aliya asked me what the sign with the P and a circle with a line on it meant and I said, “No peeing.”  Those fibs always seem to resurface, long after I’ve forgotten about them.  I guess I should be more careful.

Today Adlani said, “Let’s go to the American Girl Doll Store!  That place is so much fun!”  WTF?  Since when does Adlani like American Girl dolls?  And when did he ever GO to the AG store?  He reminded me that his friend Ailadis had her birthday party there.  I was so confused!  I knew that Adlani had gone to her party but I was positive that it wasn’t at the AG store. 

I finally figured out that when we got the invitation to the party and Adlani asked me where it was going to be, I told him it would be at the AG store just to freak him out.  So for the last month he’s been thinking that he had a hell of a time at the AG store, when her party was actually at a place called “Backyard Adventures.”  I hope he didn’t tell any of his friends how much he likes going to the AG store!
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Back in Business

It took about 3 hours but the countertops are in and they look great!  The only problem now is that we need all new appliances and to repaint the kitchen and family room.  It’s amazing how bad everything else looks when you get something new.  Oh well.

And just because you had to look at another photo of my kitchen, here’s a completely unrelated but funny video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih6W19KTlZo&hl=en&fs=1&]