Shooting for the Stars

We were wanting to push our Wonderland t-shirts a bit for work, so Daddy made up this little ad today, using his favorite model. Madison is sporting a new shirt, and wearing Mommy's creation again: the Mad Hat. As you can see behind her, there was in fact a Mad Tea Party today - Daddy and Madison had tea, and pizza, and cake with jelly beans on it. Also in attendance were Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and Mr. Peanut. Madison served up ice cream and sprinkles, leaving everyone in awe at such a marvelous party!

It was a day off, and a rainy one at that. Even now as I type, the rain is pouring down rather heavily, a fact that we are rather grateful for. The facts surrounding this day are thus:

1. We did speech therapy. Madison worked on a few letters with Daddy this morning. Her hard "C" needs a little work, but she's doing pretty good with the letter "t."

2. We had music practice. Madison impressed again with her rendition of "Mr. Snail," a raw and soulful rendition that gets your feet tapping. Madison is actually noticeably improving with her practice, although her one remaining weakness may still be rhythm, as she has a tendency to want to rush things a bit, especially when she knows what notes come next. Still, the fact that she can play notes is nonetheless impressive to Mommy and Daddy, who are learning as well, at a snail's pace.

Or rather, at "Mr. Snail's" pace...

3. We played more Disney Universe. This must be noted, as Madison and Daddy have been steadily conquering the Disney Universe, one world at a time. Today's conquest: Aladdin's World. We were only able to play this game because Madison got enough Mom bucks to purchase some time on our X-box, but it was certainly worth it! We've been having a blast with that game, one world at a time, from "Halloweentown" to "Wonderland" to "The Lion King." It's all been pretty sweet. Or as Madison says, "Suh-wheat!"

4. We watched "Kung Fu Panda 2," as a part of the whole upcoming Chinese New Year theme. Daddy held Madison's hand a little tighter during the parts about adoption. This is a movie with a message behind it for those of us who adopted from China. As is our custom, today we also ordered red envelopes and chocolate coins for Chinese New Year. Madison was with us, helping to order a few other items - we'll hand those out on the big day, but we also set ourselves up for a nice dinner together with the family at the end of the month too. Chinese food, of course. Mommy and Daddy started our fasting a little earlier than the rest of the church, just so we could eat Chinese food a little earlier!

5. We read lots of books. Daddy started out reading a few simple books that Madison selected. One was a Curious George book, and then of course there was "Rainbow Fish." Okay, I've read this book before, but for some reason, this time around "Rainbow Fish" kind of bothered Daddy. I know it is a story about giving and sharing and finding joy in generosity, but here's the deal: these fish are asking Rainbow Fish for all his scales. And they're not just asking politely either. They're like: "Give me your scales." And when he doesn't do that initially, they talk about him and soon nobody likes him because he won't rip off parts of his own body to give to everyone else.

So... the morals of the story here are:

A). If you want something that someone else owns, simply harass them to get it. And if that person still refuses, get everyone to ostracize that person?

B). If you want friends in life, you have to give them your stuff?

C). It's okay to give up all of your stuff simply because everyone else wants it.

Speaking of which, these other fish don't exactly need his scales, do they? They just want his scales, so they bug him until he peels off his own scales? What is that about?

Yes, I know the real moral is about sharing and generosity. But, I think it could have been made clearer with this book. I like the artwork - I just never sat and thought about the book before. Which I seem to be doing now a little extensively...

Let's change the subject! Why not do another book! Why not do...

MADISON'S BOOK CLUB

Here it is, the space epic: "Barbie Shoots for the Stars." Okay, so this book isn't exactly screaming for a Caldecott award (in order to do that, you have to have a character inside the book learn to read, and preferably have somebody significant die). No, this is a simple book that is illustrated as you see above: Barbie dolls photographed as if in space. Don't let the picture fool you though, this is a reading book more than a picture book. I think it has about five pictures, and maybe fifty pages or so. Daddy pretty much read every single one to Madison, too. But it wasn't that bad - I added a few adjectives here or there and changed around some of the harder words to something Madison could understand. But the point was there, and easy to make: "Practice, practice, practice." You can't be the best at anything unless you spend some time practicing for it. Which is what Barbie and her friends do. Kira is the telescope repairperson (now there's a job for you). Also on board is Robin, who uses the gigantic mechanical arm (a tool would come in handy in high traffic situations). Dan and David round off the crew, and their mission is simple: to save the universe from the galactic terror known as Parallax!*

Just kidding. They're going to go repair a telescope floating in space. Along the way, we learn patience, we learn about telescopes, we learn about gravity, we learn about space travel, and we learn about practice, practice, practice!

It is what it is. Some may see it as a commercial for Mattel products, but this book had some educational value, and it did in fact capture Madison's imagination. Later this year, we'll be going to Cape Canaveral for a visit, so perhaps this space motif is going to be a theme for 2012. Who knows? Maybe she'll be an astronaut. That was an early dream of Daddy's, but he was never that good with math. Madison seems to be pretty bright, so you never know. Also, she likes the idea of "space." Just the other day, we were doing a few space related games, and she was having a blast, so to speak. Whatever she's into, our goal here at mission control is to guide her as best as possible towards her dreams, and keep her "shooting for the stars!"

Casey Kasem would be proud.

___________

* For those of you who don't know, Parallax is the villain in the Green Lantern movie, which Mommy and I really wanted to like. We didn't. Part of it has to do with the large massive cloud thingy that serves as a main villain. This didn't really work for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," "The Never Ending Story," or even "The Fifth Element." Bottom line: don't use a giant weird cloud thingy as a villain in your movie.