Counting Cupcakes

As many of you fans of NINETY-THREE IN MY FAMILY know, I LOVE a good math story.

However, today I encountered a math story with a not-so-happy ending.

It started off with one mom (me) baking cupcakes for her daughter's school's READ ACROSS AMERICA celebration. For those of you that don't know, this is a big party held around Dr. Seuss' birthday to celebrate reading and to have an excuse to read books and eat cupcakes. So far so good, right?

Wrong. Because, see, this mom only had enough batter for 24 cupcakes. And she had one 12-cupcake pan, which she planned on using twice to make those 24 cupcakes. And since there are now 25 kids in her daughter's class, she planned on squeaking out one extra cupcake by making the others a teensy bit smaller (shhh!). And she hoped the teachers wouldn't mind being left out because, frankly, they celebrate something or other with cupcakes at this school on about a twice-a-week basis. Yikes, so many cupcake parties! But I digress. Where was I? Oh, yes - math!

While the first tray of 12 cupcakes was on a rack on the dining room table cooling, the mom put the second tray of 12 cupcakes in the oven, patted herself on the back that there was still enough batter (and one paper muffin cup!) left, and went upstairs to check her e-mail (fast forward to the moral of this story = never check your e-mail!). When she got down, she discovered the 12 cupcakes in the oven were done and there were 8 cupcakes cooling on the rack.
What the?

8???!!!

The mom used her math skills to count again.

Yup, 8.

No telltale crumbs gave away the thief, who had clearly hidden the evidence (paper muffin cups) by eating it, too.

All of a sudden, the dog seemed very, very thirsty. And had a very guilty look on her furry face. Which made the mom remember the time she had the very same facial expression after being locked in the car with a very large corn muffin (paper wrapper and all), which also vanished without a trace.

So, here's the math, kids: 12 cupcakes plus 12 cupcakes plus 1 cupcake = 25 cupcakes, right?

So, if a sneaky dog devours 4 cupcakes (paper wrappers and all!), how many kids are going to be extremely bummed out on READ ACROSS AMERICA day?

Did you get 4? Great job, math sleuths!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go to the store for more cake mix.

Dream On, My Seven-Year-Old

I don't know about you, but MY seven-year-old is a drama geek. The current musical in heavy rotation at our house is Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which is fun yet kind of challenging to explain (especially to my three and a half year old, who shares her sister's obsession with musicals). I'd say I'm not sure where they got bit by the theatre bug... except I am. They got it from Mike. Yup, my husband, Mike. He's the one who was lining up to see Dreamgirls the minute it hit the theatres, who works out to the soundtrack from Rent: Mike, Mike, Mike.

Oh, wait. That's actually me.

Anyway, my seven-year-old asked about Dreamgirls. Specifically, could she see it? She'd seen the newspaper ads, admired the costumes. To her, it looked like a singing, dancing film about the Bratz dolls. I'll admit, I was stumped. Could she see it? According to the Dreamgirls PG-13 rating, parents are "strongly cautioned" that the film contains "language, some sexuality and drug content." O-kay. However, since I was going anyway, I decided to prescreen it for my child.

Here's my review of the appropriateness of the film for my seven-year-old:

Language = Um, not sure to what this referred. It's possible someone said the "s" word, but I guess I didn't notice. Nor do I care if my seven-year-old hears mild swearing.

Some sexuality = Again, not exactly sure what the Academy sensors were getting at. There's a lot of "sexy-ness", as is the case if Beyonce appears on screen wearing just about anything. But there's NO sex, no nudity, nothing to raise an eyebrow at, as far as I could tell. One character has a child out of wedlock, but the whole circumstance is conveyed through inuendo (so much so that I was convinced my seven-year-old would likely miss this entire subplot).

Drug Use = Again, very low key. Joints are smoked, by my seven-year-old would likely view this as just "smoking" (which is bad enough, in her book). Eddie Murphy's character leans over to do coke at one point and he rolls up his sleeve, suggesting (to an adult) he is about to shoot up. He also goes onstage high and removes his pants. To my seven-year-old, this behavior would likely seem odd, but not alarming.

But here's the thing - and I love how the academy could care less about this - the reason I won't be taking my seven-year-old to see Dreamgirls is: there are a few violent scenes, the likes of which I don't think she should see. The film takes place during the 60's, in large part, and there's footage of riots, police fighting back, and windows breaking (looting?). There's footage related to Martin Luther King's assassination and a brief clip of a gun firing out of a car window. None of this violence touches the main characters, but the images were strong.

My conclusion: we'll get the soundtrack and let it pick up when interest in Joseph wanes. Perhaps we'll rent the DVD and show clips of the stage scenes.

Just for Mike, of course.

The Tooth, The Whole Tooth and Nothing But The Tooth

First of all, let me say that I'm a library patron who LOVES deep cuts.

That is: library books that I loved as a kid and haven't thought about in years (Elizabeth Levy's Something Queer Is Going On series was such a treat to rediscover at my beloved DC Public Library - home of the "NO fines for the entire juvenile collection" policy, hooray!).

One such deep cut, I thought, was Johanna Hurwitz's Nora books, including Nora and Mrs. Mind-Your-Own-Business.

In fact, I don't think I did read it as a child, but it reminded me of a certain kind of New York City-centric children's books (e.g. The House on East 88th Street, From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler) that I devoured as the child of New-York-Jews-Who-Moved-Elsewhere-To-Deprive-Their-Children-Of-Decent-Bagels. Lore Segal's fabulous Tell Me a Mitzi is another fine example of the genre.

Anyway, I checked several Nora books out and brought them home, and immediately began to read them aloud to my bookivore audience of rapt listeners. All went well through several fun chapters of resourceful urban kiddos. All went well, in fact, until the part when Nora, who has lost a tooth, wakes up in the middle of the night to find Mommy and Daddy hunting under her pillow (spoiler alert: if you are under the age of, oh, I dunno, eight, STOP READING THIS BLOG ENTRY!). Nora proceeds to sit up in bed and discover that, as her father jokingly puts it, she's actually related to the tooth fairy.

Well, faster than you can say "Yikes, self-edit! Self-edit!" I finished the page and Franny stared at me, the implications sinking in.

"Her mom... is the... tooth fairy?" For a second, I considered trying to pass this off as a novel situation concerning the character's mom's lineage in fairy terms (even though she is clearly depicted as a regular mom of the wingless variety).

"Uh, I, uh. Wow, I dunno." I'm really a terrible liar. Especially when put on the spot.

"Are YOU the tooth fairy?"

By now, I had recovered my composure. I tried my best weapon: silliness. "How in the world would I do that? Do you think I can fly all over the world?"

"Yeah, but ARE you?"

Truly, dear reader, I did not know what to do. What did she want, exactly? The truth? Or reinforcement of what she believed? And what did I want? A co-conspirator (and, thus, a potential security breech, seeing as our second child has a mouth full of 20 secure baby teeth, as of this writing)? Or a CHILD, still on the right side of the line of that separates boring old truth from magic.

"No, I'm not." Given a little time to prepare, my limited lying skills kick in. I spend the rest of the afternoon wondering if I've given the right answer. I mean, she'd simply have to check with an older child and I'd be unmasked as a total fraud. A humbug, in the 1899 parlance of L. Frank Baum. But she seemed satisfied by my answer, so I dropped it.

Verification that my response was, quite likely, the one she sought came at bedtime.

"Mom?" she asked, gesturing to a large reference volume on fairies (the regular, non-tooth-specific kind) that lay spread open on her floor.

"Can you close that book up? I don't want the fairies to get out."

It's Only Natural

Since both of my kids had strep this week (not at the same time, of course... that would have been too boring!), AND I had a bunch of freelance work due, I didn't get a spare moment to brush my teeth, much less post. And even now, I should probably be downstairs, tending to Bougie, who is liable to hurl on the couch without any warning.

Dedicated blogger that I am, I'll take that risk.

Here's the subject of today's post: the difference between my two kids (other than 3 and a half years, a foot or two of height, about 30 lbs, and another foot or so of hair).

Kid # 1 = We drove past a dead possum on the way home the other day and then had to go through an extended discussion about life, death, the mourning Mr. Possum's family was probably doing, and what if this?, what if that? and what if the other?. Yes, Kid # 1 is seven, so what if is big for her right now, but the conversation reminded me of how, when she was 3 and a half, she used to get upset if we watched the occasional nature documentary and anything, you know, natural (like, say, a big fish eating a smaller one) happened on screen.

Cut to Kid # 2.

Kid # 2 = Is currently 3 and a half and was watching a nature documentary today about the wonders of the sea. Needless to say, we learned that the poorly-named angel shark is a bloodthirsty killer, who hides on the ocean floor and snaps up unsuspecting (and cute!) smaller fish in greedy gulps, generating puffs of bright red water.

Hmmm. I waited for her reaction with baited breath (sorry, couldn't resist).

"Wanna turn this off and have dinner?" I asked.

"Okay," she said. Then: "Mom?"

"Yes, hon?"

Pause.

"Do we have any fish?"

"Um, fish?"

"Yeah."

"You mean like tuna?"

"Yes. I want to eat some fish."

O-kay. My first child has her problems, god love her, but she is sensitive as the day is long. My second child, however, is a bloodthirsty fish-eater. Kid # 1 rejects the law of the jungle. Kid # 2 not only embraces it, she welcomes an opportunity to reenact it!

Still, with the strep, Kid # 2 hadn't eaten (or wanted to eat) anything in days. What could I do?

I got the can opener.

The Best Picture Book I Read Today

Let me start by saying that I read a LOT of picture books today. Bougie was home and it was drippy so we went to Politics and Prose and the Cleveland Park Library. And CVS, but that was just so we could buy some more modeling clay to make an igloo for Pinga, the black and white modeling clay blob she made in the likeness of the sister of Pingu, the claymation penguin of short-film fame.

Most of the books we read were about Peter and the Wolf. Seriously: three separate books, read multiple times each. Bougie tends to get a little obsessed when she's on a topic and this week it is Peter and his orchestral pals. The narratives were so similar that it was almost like reading the same book nine times which, I'm sure I don't have to tell you, puts this whole stay-home-and-bond-with-your-kid-a-few-days-a-week thing to the test. The pictures varied, thank God, yet none of the illustrators strayed too far from the basic concept. Peter always wore a tunic, the wolf was always gray and sinister, the final spread was always a parade to the zoo. Yawn.

But then, behold, another book entered the scene. I almost passed over it because of the title, My Best Sweet Potato, which suggested an overly syruppy narrative (e.g. "Love You Like Crazy Cakes"... which may well be a good book, but which I will likely never read because of the title). Thankfully, the cover illustration, a girl in a weird oversized patchwork bathing cap pulling a string protruding from a faceless gingerbread man of a doll, piqued my curiousity.

The book, by Rainy Dohaney, the author/illustrator of the similarly ideosyncratic Tinka, is just about the best thing I've discovered in ages. It tells the tale of an odd girl who stubbornly loves her almost scarily faceless ugly doll, Woolyman (who is not, just to be clear, an Uglydoll, all of which have at least one eye), and who actually loves him more after the washing machine renders him unable to talk normally. Post spin cycle, he barfs out botched phrases, all of which include the words "Sweet Potato." Still, he's good company, hanging out, playing games, and willingly eating jam sandwiches without benefit of a mouth, to humorous effect.

This totally rang true for me, since my childhood doll, Alice Winn Luis (which I named in honor of my mom's friend Alice Winn and "Luis" from Sesame Street) went from saying "Mama" to "Ma" to "burrrrp!!" and, now that Bougie has her, only says "ugh." During our read-aloud, Bougie seemed to particularly like it when I said the words "sweet potato" with a wacky kind of rhythm to them, like a skipping vinyl record. I like to believe this is how the author intended them to be read.

The illustrations are wonderful (reminiscent of Peter Sis and Sergio Ruzzier) and I loved Mac the Weaverbird (the character who briefly comes between the girl and her Woolyman) for his friendly-stoner voice (he calls Woolyman "buddy" and "man" repeatedly). Both of my kids got into this book, which was particularly pleasing since Franny has been showing an alarming amount of interest in books about American Girls and Rainbow Magic Fairies lately. I was starting to wonder if her literary tastes were shorting out at the ripe old age of seven. Luckily, she redeemed herself by getting on board with My Best Sweet Potato. Her gushing "That was a GOOD book!" at the book's close was genuine and heartfelt.

Too bad the next words out of her mouth were, "Do we still have time for a chapter of 'Kit's Surprise'?"

Hey, could be worse, I guess. Could be round ten (eleven? twelve?) of Peter and the Wolf.