ParaNorman

 

 

Me to my three contributions to the universe:  ParaNorman got really high reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, who's in?

Kenneth: ME!

Frances: NO WAY I don't do zombies...

Lowell: ME!

P: Are you sure? it’s going to be scary.....

L: I want to see the zombies....

Well, it is rated PG, how scary is it, really?

Fine... the boys and I go, and we do our thing...we know how to buy tickets in a line and we know to use the bathrooom and we know we don't play video games or ask for snacks...

Kick it up a notch:

So boys, what theater are we looking for?

Number 9....

we find 3, 7, 11.....I think they put them out of order to annoy me..

Finally...there is the 9, with a poster of our movie by it and.....

Lowell starts shaking like a leaf over the poster, not the movie, not a trailer, a poster. 

This kid sat through all kinds of Superhero and Transformer and Ben Ten whatever, but ParaNorman seems to be the limit.

Lowell: Ok mommy, I changed my mind I want to go home now.

It is such a bummer to be a third child, I really feel for them and thank God everyday I'm the oldest.

P: Um… I already bought the ticket.  The 3D tickets, we can't really just go home.  Why don't you try it?

Lowell:  I....I....

K: Really Lowell?  You can't watch zombies?  I can watch zombies...

Lowell  was suddenly  torn between wanting to run out the exit door and hanging with his older brother.  Not a good place to be.  We went inside with him holding on to me for dear life.

He perfected the watch and hide technique.  He would sit in my lap for some of it and then hide under his seat like a turtle.  Again, with the third child...I didn't wipe the floor off.

I did feel it was my obligation to tell him he was doing a diservice to the film.

P: Sweetie, you are missing really good dialogue-that’s when two people talk to each other…and whoever wrote it did a brilliant job...

Lowell: I don’t care

I tried one more time:

P: Angel baby, this is a really good special effect … we could make our own puppets and use the iPhone….

L: Mom, I’ll just hide under this seat, ok?

I'll give this to Lowell. Even under his plush red seat,  he laughed at the more intelligent jokes.  He still can't get over the humus bit.

All right, he is fine.

So I turned my attention to the other guy I was with. Why don't I do this in real life?

He was much more into it.

Kenneth: "Mom!  This is awesome!  Thank you thank you thank you!!!  See that zombie!  The judge.  He reminds me of William Shakespeare...

Now that's more like it.

I started whispering him about the movie and explained the references to other movies.

Such as:

Friday the 13th
The Exorcist
The Sixth Sense
The Others
The Uninvited
28 Days Later
all the Zombie films I never watched...

Kenneth: Awesome mom-how old do I have to be to watch those?

P: Ummmm I'm not sure, I know some people pushing forty that won't watch any of those now.  We'll talk as you get older.

Kenneth: Ok, but maybe we should quit whispering now.

Righto

As the movie progressed and the plot developed, Lowell climbed out from under his seat and cheered the hero/underdog on.  All types of kids who are different and misunderstood were represented.  One scene in that movie is going to annoy the hell out of certain conservative groups.  YAY!!!!

On the way home we discussed the movie and a little about the Salem Witch Trials which are referenced in the film.

Some parts of history just can't be grasped by six year olds:

Kenneth: The Salem Witch Trials- wait what?  In America? Really?

Must google book for children about the Salem Witch Trials-perhaps there is a Magic Treehouse....

Best things to come away with:

1) The boys want to hear "Little Ghost" by White Stripes over and over again right now. Stay for the closing credits.  Thank God I like folk music.

2) It's one thing for other people to be afraid of your differences, but your family should love you, support you,  and roll with it.

3) My mom reminded me that my children have no interest in Tim Burton's Frankenweenie coming out in October.

I asked them about it when we got home:

P: What’s deal with that boys?  ParaNorman yes, Frankenweenie, No?

Kenneth: We’re men-we mix our messages...

Lowell: Yeah-like my zombies....

Ain’t that the damn truth…

Enjoy your differences…let it roll.

A Happy Harry Potter Day....

*Warning and Disclaimer: I am a Harry Potter fan and have the right to write what I want. If it is too over the top for you and you can’t enjoy the entertainment of it-go read a foodie recipe blog and leave me alone.

Now….My Happy Harry Potter Day….

July 31, 2012- Harry Potter is 32 today.  It has been 15 years since he defeated the Dark Lord…wow.  That was the same year I graduated from college, got married, and started teaching in the public schools.  He and I sure have grown up.  Here I am in New York City..by myself.  I don’t have to be anywhere or answer to anyone. I have a ticket for Potted Potter tonight at seven. My ticket stub will say July 31^st. Yay!!!

But what to do with an entire day for Harry Potter?  I’m not in London, but this is New York. I can find something Potter-like  to do. 

He was the Gryffindor Seeker-flying on a broom up high in the air….I need to hit the Empire State Building.  Sure, millions of tourists come up this high every year just to pretend they are watching a Quidditch match-right? They must.  I can’t be the only person who thought this.  I waited in the line and I walked the six flights from floor 80 to 86 because I thought it would be good cross training. I looked at all the views-no Quidditch, but I was up high. 

What next???

Hmmmm…Harry could speak Parsletongue.  He got mad and set a boa constrictor loose on his cousin.

 It was time to hit the Central Park zoo.

I saw all the snakes and not a one of them winked at me. That is actually a good thing, because if one of them had I would know for sure I was completely crazy. 

I was trying to find 3rd street after that, and stumbled across…

Dylan’s Candy Bar

Honeyduke’s anyone?  Harry spent many a Galleon on the candies that only exist in the wizarding world.  I doubted I could find a Chocolate Frog that really jumped or Pepper Imps that would make me breathe fire or a Fizzing Whizbee  so I could levitate.  Instead,  I found lots of yummy treats that would force me to run not one but two marathons if I ate them all at once.

It was an awesome candy shop.  My only complaint is the name candies.  They never have my name spelled correctly and forget any of my children.  That’s not a completely bad thing if your goal is to be different.  So I’ll just drop it.

What they did have was an entire wall of Jelly Bellys-the Muggle equivalent of Bertie Bott’s.   I mixed my own bag of every flavor beans… popcorn, espresso coffee, margarita..:0)

All those sweets made me hungry for lunch.  What would Harry Potter have on his birthday?  He wouldn’t have a hotdog or a pizza slice.  He wouldn’t grab a gyro on the run.  I needed to find a pub.

I’ll try the Room of Requirement incantation and see what happens: I need to find a pub, I need to find a pub, I need to find a pub…

Just like that, an Irish one appeared out of nowhere.  Hmmmm Harry lived in Little Whinging and his house is now in London. Hogwarts is up in Scotland..but Seamus Finnegan came from Ireland!!!! Yay!  Ireland has a presence in the magical world-I can eat there.

Since I was alone, the hostess told me to sit at the bar.  I ordered the Shepherd’s pie and a Guinness for Harry Potter.

I didn’t notice the guy sitting next to me until he asked about the Olympic soccer match.

The small talk continued about what I done that morning and the play I was going to that night.  He looked at me, he looked at my candy bag, and he looked at the Guinness.

Then he said, “Are you on a Harry Potter mission today?”

“Yes.”  Since he figured it out why lie?

“Well, I’m a middle school English teacher –aren’t you glad you didn’t sit down next to an investment banker that would have thought you were crazy?”

“Uh…maybe?”

“What’s the next thing on your Harry Potter agenda?”

I had originally planned on having my red lochs blown dry straight like Hermione did before the Yule Ball with the Sleekeazy Hair Potion, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

“Nothing until Potted Potter tonight at seven.”

“Would you like Irish Pub hop for Harry? I will have you at your theater in time for your play.”

Now everyone please don’t freak-I’m smart.  While he went to the bathroom,  I Googled his school-there he was in the English department.  The Room of Requirement sent me an English teacher that understood it was July 31^st.  Never leave home without your iPhone.

My favorite part of the hop was McSorley’s-it’s a famous place-Seamus Finnegan would be proud….

 Yes…I made it to my play and it was AWESOME.  The Potted Potter parody is another example of how the fans can take the Potter world and make it their own.  These comedians took each book and told the story in seventy minutes with a lot of props, witty one-liners, and a Quidditch match in the middle.

You don’t have to go to the UK to have a Harry Potter day!

 All my stubs and receipts from that day say the 31^st and reflect something from the Harry Potter world.

From now on, July 31^st is better by than my own birthday. 

What a Patronus full of happy memories….

Ted...seriously, yes... Ted :0)

Ok kids are going to have some much needed Daddy time and I’m going to have some much needed movie time.

I already have a plan...

Beasts of the Southern Wild ….Beasts of the Southern Wild. I am so excited I have been waiting for this...finally a phenomenal film with a child actress....and it isn't playing on the shoreline.  This movie art house advertises before it knows for sure they are going to send the film.  The manager and I already had this fight once over The Skin I live in.  I won't yell at him again, I'll just find something in Branford to watch.

What to see?  My daughter texts me from her father's phone while I am searching my movie app. I hate it when a text pops up in the middle of something else.

Mommy... I need my teddybear...can you bring it it daddy's house? I left it across the street during the fireworks party.

Because she is my only daughter and I want her one day to tell a therapist that she loves me, I went over to my neighbor's house, got the bear, and drove it to her father's house.

What don't we do for our bears?  I mean daughters....

Sign from God as to which film would get the privilege of my undivided attention.  I need a bear.

Is there a movie out about a bear?

It isn't Winnie the Pooh, it isn't Paddington...I need a bear movie.

There is one bear movie out there...

Ted

I can't go see "Ted." I have rules, I have standards...I have one too many friends that will roll their eyes at me over this.  The last time I saw a comedy as such was The Waterboy when one of my 8th graders wrote an essay in Spanish about how she could watch it all day every day.  How could I not check that out? 

But back to Ted...hmmm I can't..I want to,  I can't....I want to..

Loop hole...loop hole there has to be a loop hole that will allow me, Page, the only sixth grader that fully appreciated Raising Arizona, to see Ted.

I have it....

Giovanni Ribisi is in it. I'll go see anything with Giovanni.  Lost in Translation, Boiler Room, Avatar, Cold Mountain...I got this.  I can't not see Giovanni on the big screen. I didn't realize there was an animated teddy bear involved too.  That's what I'll tell people.  It was for Giovanni.

The audience was mostly male. I have very rarely seen men sitting together in films.  That was awesome within itself.

A mostly male audience is not there for Giovanni Ribisi...at least I hope they aren't....

Ok...this is like David Sedaris or Avenue Q. You can divide the audience up by who laughs when.  Some people are going to laugh at the crude jokes and others are going to laugh at the more intelligent ones.  Everything is on a spectrum-autism, nutrition, and humor.

But I was RIGHT in my reasoning behind going to see the film.

Giovanni Ribisi stole the movie. I mean he might as well have said, "OK everybody, I'll take over from here and make this movie watchable."  and he did.

The end of it turned into a Romantic Comedy and those make me want to throw up, no matter how many drugs we see a teddy bear do.  This is America-we must have our magic rainbow happy ending. Fine. I knew that when I bought the ticket. 

Overall, I laughed enough to make it worth it.  Grazie Giovanni.  I need to take an Italian class.

Since I wasn't being the movie snob this time, someone else filled the position. I had a friend ask me what I thought of the movie, and I told him.

 Maybe I should have lied. Maybe I should have said I walked out after I realized that Mark Whalberg was 35 and working for a rental car place and smoking pot with his stuffed teddy bear and still freaked during thunderstorms. I most definitely should have said I only went because the Coen Brothers don't have anything new and I have already memorized the latest Woody Allen...

But I didn't say that, I gave my Giovanni speech.

Oops....

then was told, "The 13 year olds must be seeing it twice and three times because it is making crazy money.  I am annoyed by comedy movie conventions that seem to be there.  I will see it on cable probably."

Ouch-is this how I sound to other people when I don't like a movie that I haven't seen yet?  If I do, awesome!!!!!

I have a new movie snob hero to look up to...but in the mean time...

Go see whatever you want to see for whatever the reason you feel moved to see it.  Be prepared for others to want to see something else or wait for it to be in the free movie section on Demand.

I still prefer Boogie Nights...I'll bet one or two of the men there did too.


P.S.- I ran 16 miles..seriously, yes sixteen :0)

Ice Age and the next level

I firmly believe that if you want kids to do something, you have to make it part of who they are.  If you want them to eat in restaurants, you have to take them to restaurants. If you want them to read, read to them.  If you want them to behave in a theater, keep taking them to movie theaters.  This is not rocket science.

We can safely say that we have mastered the social setting of the cinema.  We have executive functioning and behavioral task analysis down when it comes to Hollywood and Independent art houses.  I don't have to take the earmuffs anymore.  We know the social story by heart and flow through the steps like any kids with a competent mom on a summer afternoon at a theater.

In even BIGGER news-we have mastered the sharing of a popcorn bucket.  One child sits on my lap with the bucket while the other two are on either side of me and the whole thing is gone half way through the film. We don't add butter, not because I am uber super healthy mommy, but because Kenneth freaks if anything touches anything he eats-no butter, no ketchup, zilch.  Four people sharing a bucket.  That's two dollars a person. Proud of my math or what?


We decided on Ice Age: Continental Drift.  This would be the fourth installment and they aren't direct to video yet.  I am not big on these movies, but...Ok, Ok...let's do it.  I'll pretend every time I hear Dennis Leary's voice I'm watching Rescue Me.

Previews are spotty-Lowell hides under the chair for most of them.  We want to see the Hobbit but Mama is going solo to Frankenweenie.

Lovely, bravo...we did it...mother of three can leave the house every now and then without making a scene!!!

What do we do when skills are mastered?  We take it to the next level and re-write the family goals.

Now that I can leave the house and watch a movie, we are going to discuss the movie afterwards.

Rule number one I want them to always remember: movies are meant for the big screen-not the little one.  The point of a movie is to go BIG!  You are doing a disservice to the writer/director/actors if you wait for DVD.   I think they got it.


I made them answer these questions if they wanted ice cream for desert:

What happened?  Give me the plot of the whole thing.

Who were the characters? (It helps to have a poster or a picture or a McDonald's Happy Meal if you swing that way...)

What did we learn about friendship and family?

What were the funny parts?  The comic relief?

What was scary?

We went over all of this and I think they got it. I'm not putting down their answers because I really don't want to spoil the surprise of the film...ha.

I made the mistake of asking, "Did anyone else notice anything we didn't talk about?"

Why did I do that?

Kenneth had to pipe up.  I knew he would.  I asked the question and he isn't going to let anything go.  Maybe I should have just let them go run around the backyard and swat bugs with ice cream bars in their free hands.

"Actually mom, now that you bring it up, I don't think the science was accurate."

"No, probably not."

"I mean, I know that all seven continents were once one, but I don't think it happened that quickly and all the animals..."

"Want to ride your bicycle without training wheels some more?"

"SURE!!!"

Yes, I distracted him, I taught high school Spanish, not Earth Science.


The best part for my children to see was the end when they coupled the actors recording their voices next to pictures of their cartoon counterparts.  I didn't realize that Game of Thrones super star Peter Dinklage was Captain Gutt or I would have agreed to go much sooner.   If my children ever hope to get a puppy out of me one day, all they have to do is promise to name him Tyrion. :0)

New rule-we watch a movie as a team, we discuss it as a team.

Their mother is a freak that way.

P.S.- Up at Five am for a six mile run, although I forgot to hit the app on my phone to record it until half way into it, so my phone says I only ran three miles. They didn't have such things in the Ice Age anyway.

A Run through Rome....

Is it seven am already?

Coffee…..check…I’m not running this morning so the babysitter can sleep in. Kids are still asleep...hallelujah..I can say this as it is not Lent.

Coffee pod…push button…..this is so much freaking easier than an espresso machine.

Milk..milk…found the milk.. Caffeine going through the veins….bliss….I’ll just open the back door to get a cross breeze going…and....and...

and there is a pool in my backyard.

I’m just going to do that thing they used to do in the old school cartoons, where I get a knife or a safety pin and stab myself in the arm until I wake up.  Ouch…ok that hurt…one more time…oh crap that pool is still there.

THERE IS AN ABOVE GROUND POOL IN MY BACKYARD!!!!!

You know, I’m too nice. I’ll take the Phish music and I’ll take the unemployed men getting mad because they can’t throw a boomerang and catch it like my intelligent six year old, but a pool?  NO!!!!

I’m done…I’m over all of this crap. I need an outlet…I’m going to see a movie this afternoon.

Which one?  That’s a no brainer….To Rome with Love  it is…

I gave myself a little liturgical challenge last spring. I told forty stories about forty times I went to theaters and what happened when I got there. I did it-but one of my favorite directors was missing.

I didn't tell a Woody Allen story-and not for lack of them.


I have many a Woody Allen story. A lot of them include the nerds I went to high school with and a couple involve college beach trips, but maybe the neurotic Jew just didn't have space in a blog collection leading up to the death and resurrection of Christ. I'm sure he'd thank me if he cared.


We can all find a little Woody Allen in us. It's easy really. You just look around you and make observations and connections to other things in your life and past about everything you see. OUT LOUD..don't sugar coat it. Don't filter it for your grandmother. Just say it. And you can't be embarrassed or worried about what someone else is going to think. Just put it out there-and you have a Woody Allen film. He won't do bonus commentaries for his DVDs. He says the movie is all you need to know about the movie. He has a point.


The critics-the people who are paid to go see movies and tell other people what they think about them-are 50/50 this time with Mr. Allen. To Rome with Love is four stories in Rome going on at once-they never connect in anyway other than you can tell Woody wrote them.



I’ll spell them out:


1) One average working man gets a taste of the celebrity life style.

2) A small town couple finds out how much fun extra curricular trysts can be

3) A retired music producer discovers a mortician that can sing in the shower

4) An American arquitect wants to visit the country he studied in during his twenties


I don't have all day, so I'll just focus on my favorite vignette. Alec Baldwin is the architect stumbling around his old neighborhood looking for what was once his old apartment. He meets a twenty year old kid who happens to be in school for architecture and knows exactly where the apartment is and takes him there for coffee. OK, I was slow on the uptake during the Sixth Sense, but I figured this one out pretty quickly.  Duh...


I was loving the film and picking apart the dialogue and comparing Ellen Page in this to the time I saw her in Juno when we were both pregnant. Listening to her character name drop to the young architect cracked me up. She liked Gaudi and the Sagrada Familia? Always let the conversation go on a little bit longer to make sure they can keep up and aren't just telling you what they want to hear. Did she like Park Guell too? How about the Casa Batllo?  Everybody and their brother knows Gaudi and the Sagrada Familia.

She didn't even try to be adorable about her ignorance- I would have said:

 I only know Gaudi, Frank Loyd Wright, IM Pei, and Maya Lin. Four famous architects for a trivia game but I can't help my son put a Lego set together past the age of seven.

 As I was over analyzing the phone rang silently. Yes, I was that movie patron. My phone was making noise during a fine arts cinema production.

 The old me would have gotten irritated with this. But the new me has three kids at home and left the theater to answer it.



It was the property manager of my house.


PAGE! HOW DARE YOU PUT A POOL IN THE BACKYARD FOR YOUR CHILDREN! IT NEEDS TO COME DOWN!


I didn't put a pool in the backyard. The girls upstairs did. I am sitting in the hoity toity town of Madison, CT watching a Woody Allen film with possibly ten other people all way older than I am while everyone else is in Branford watching Ted or Magic Mike. This is my life. I can't go to a theater without something happening.

I tried to be polite and handle this quickly because with every second I spent on mundane stupidity I was missing brilliant self-depricating witty dialogue we only get once a year and Woody is pushing 80 so how many more of these movies do I have??? (sob)

I cleared my throat and channneled him, to my property manager.  I tried to think of what Woody would say if he were the 37 year old mother of three in a new life setting she didn't really plan.

UM, seriously, it wasn't me that did it. Yes, I have three children that would be more than happy in a germ filled pool without having to go anywhere strapped in a carseat.  Sadly for them, I enjoy taking them around other people to swim so that they acquire social skills they wouldn't get sitting in an above ground pool in my backyard swatting mosquitos.  God knows I have broken rules before and will more than likely break them again.  When I was eleven I got in trouble over Judy Blume books, just last year a principal accused me of sharing a porn DVD with another mother via our children's backpacks, and that one boyfriend in highschool almost had to go back to drug rehab over me,  but putting up a pool in a backyard that doesn't belong to me isn't on that list. OK I don't have time for this I need to analyze a film- Bye.

Then I had to quickly run back to my seat and not irritate the old ladies behind me.

ahhhhh wit again.

 I hate the word cute-so I'll say that the film is a quirky little romp through Rome that could have happened almost anywhere. Not his best, not his worst. If you love Woody Allen you will love this too. 

Other than Annie Hall and Hannah and Her Sisters, this one stirred up some emotion in me.

Alec Baldwin and Jesse Eisenberg are ingrained in my brain forever-no kidding.  Kind of a post traumatic stress disorder moment, if you will.

I'd love to wander around Sevilla, Spain and see my twenty year old self. I would run into her on the tippy top the the Giralda tower. She would have this thick head of red hair and be wearing socks that match her shirt.  I would tell her three things:  1) Start learning about autism other than Rain Man. 2) You are writing all those letters because you love to write, keep doing it, and 3) buy hair gel.


Everything else she could figure out on her own-including how to be witty and get a pool out of her backyard.

Thanks Woody-see you next year!

P.S.-I ran 12 miles today in the heat.

2: Run Lola Run...

This is a little German gem from the late 90s.  Before this I had only seen the work of Wem Wenders, I was seriously lacking in the German film department. My apologies. Scotland was getting a lot of my attention back then-Shallow Grave, Trainspotting...Berlin was off my radar. 

Until this brightly colored redhead took off on a twenty minute run to get her boyfriend 100,000 Deutschmarks before a gangster kills him.  Obviously the film was made before the Euro.  She does this run in a weird tank top thing and black boots.  Wow.

I say my life changes with each text.  Lola got a phone call.  The landline phone rings in her parent's apartment and she answers it. That was mistake number one. Don't answer the phone. Of course, there was no caller ID.  Her boyfriend tells her she has until noon to help him. She looks at the clock-it's 11:40.   This triggers the run that reminds me of a 5K sprint.

It actually becomes three twenty minute runs with three alternate courses she can take to get to that phone booth with a bag of money by noon. It's a really funky groundhog day minus Bill Murray before he hooked up with Wes Anderson.  Like I said, technology has advanced. She could have texted him, "I have it-I'm on my way.  Don't shoot anyone." But where is the fun and exercise in that?


The big question is:  if it had been Lola in the phone booth, would Manni have answered the phone or responded to the text? That's easy-no. Oh I'm sorry baby, did you text me?  It must have been off...

If you need a really good  speed workout, set an impossible task and try and beat the clock. Do it three times and see if the journey to the place is different. I have gotten cash to a book fair as my child was walking in with his class.  Does that count?


I want to sit Lola down and help her pick a better shade of red next time she decides to join the club. 

I also want to take a run through Berlin.  Tic toc...

Ordinary lesson 1: My sons have an underwear problem.....

I refuse to go see a movie unless the critics tell me it is ok to see one. I am also going through this "alone" phase, and that includes movie theaters.  I don't want to make small talk with some older guy my friends set me up with and he doesn't know jack about cinema anyway.   I don't want to talk about who the best first/third grade teachers are going to be next year.  I don't want to giggle. I just want to watch my movie, analyze the hell out of it,  and then go home.

I felt this way about The Avengers.  I rarely go see superhero movies in the movie theater. Now that I think on it, I had never been to see a superhero movie..wait-in 8th grade the batman movie with Jack Nicholson came out.  That was the last time I saw a superhero in a theater, 1989.

But this Avenger film was 93% fresh.   How could that be?  Should I give this movie two and a half hours of my undivided attention and free time?  There was something about it that was oddly familiar anyway.

Let's examen the cast..Scarlett Johannason, Mark Ruffalo, Samuel L. Jackson, Gwenyth Paltrow, Robert Downey Jr.  Fine...I can spend an evening with these people.  Even if it isn't at the art cinema where I have spent time with all of them before (Ghost World, The Kids are All Right, Pulp Fiction, Sliding Doors, Two Girls and a Guy-if you have seen all of those you have a place in my heart).


Indeed I was entertained-I hope the comic book people appreciate my effort. 

Later, as I'm folding laundry, I realize I see these guys over and over again every day.

Little boys and their underwear

When it comes to getting dressed, little boys take pride in what goes on first.  They can't just grab underwear, they have to look to see who is on it.  I have broken up many a fight about which Superhero is the best.  I am more inclined to go with Superman-I loved Smallville.

The other day I had laid out their clothes like I do every day-and there was an issue with my underwear choice.

"No, mom, not Phineas and Ferb...where is Captain America?  Where is The Hulk?"

I did not have the right underwear. 

I try to smooth it over:

"Oh guys man, I'm so sorry I didn't switch the laundry over.  Tomorrow, OK?  You two love Phineas and Ferb-they are almost as creative as you."

Yes, I kissed up to my six and three year old. Do you blame me?

They looked and acted like I had just killed a puppy. I swear I ruined their lives over underwear that hopefully nobody sees outside of this house. 

There was a long pause, and in my house long pauses are bad because that means thoughts are being thought. 

Kenneth was the first to speak.

"It was the run." 

He said this in a simple matter of fact way.  Like an adult.

"Excuse me?"

"You went for a run and didn't flip the wash and now we don't have our favorite underwear."

Lowell catches on to this quickly.

"Yeah, that's what it was."

Then the two of them hatch a plan-why do I have two of them again?  Their sister doesn't care what I do.

"That's it! No more runnning for you!" 

"Yep-we are going to be so bad for the sitter you won't be able to run!"

I proceded with all the stuff moms say about how some boys just have white underwear.  Some kids are lucky they have Spiderman instead of Superman on a Monday morning. Some kids are blessed just to know the underwear is clean and hole free, but not my sons.

There is no way I am going to give up my morning runs while I have a sitter to come over because I forgot to dry the Flash.  The only person I care about going faster than a speeding bullet is me. In Hartford. In October.

I'm googling Wonder Woman underwear for the day of the race.  The boys can be whatever superhero they want-they just to need to lay it out the night before, after they put it in the dryer themselves.

Now I'm ready for Prometheus...alone again...