Tales of an overzealous Mom, volume 492

NOTE: This was supposed to post on Friday, but I forgot to hit "publish." Yay me! Birthday and Mother's Day post coming tomorrow!
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So my kids had a zoo trip Friday, which I couldn't go on, because of work. (Thank God Lester has a more flexible schedule!)

But I wanted to contribute something to the day, so I made sure to pack a delicious brown-bag lunch they'd love. For Dean, I went heavy on the jelly and light on the peanut butter. For Cary, both sides of the sandwich were spread with equal amounts of each. I made sure to include fruit snacks in with their grapes, because they think fruit snacks are candy. I found stickers of zoo animals and decorated their lunch bags with zebras, giraffes, tigers and toucans. And I made sure to freeze their fruit-and-veggie juice boxes overnight so they'd be nice and cold after hours of walking around the zoo.

Here's a photo Lester took of the boys having their lunch. Look closely. Dean is JUST about to be frustrated. And thirsty.

Because. The juiceboxes were still frozen.

For some reason, they gave the kids lunch at 10:45. Why? No one knows. If they'd eaten lunch at 12 or 12:30 like normal people, maybe there would have been more time for thawing.

But noooooo. 10:45.

The thing is, Lester said to me last night as I was packing the lunches to just put his water bottle and their juices in the fridge. That they'd be plenty cold. But did I listen? Noooo.

Instead, I imagined my kids -- tired from walking the miles and miles of the Baltimore Zoo, sweat rolling down their little temples from the hot sun -- taking that first, long sip of ice cold, refreshing juice and saying, "Man, that's cold. And so delicious. That Mom! She is the best! This sandwich is just right! These fruit snacks are such a treat! But this here cold juicebox? That just really takes the cake. We are so lucky!"

First of all, folks -- it's not even all that hot today. In fact, my poor boys are probably a little bit shiver-y in those shorts. (WHAT IS UP WITH THIS SPRING??) And they got to the zoo at 10 a.m., so I'm sure they weren't even close to being tired from walking around the zoo by the time the dinner bell rang at frikkin' 10:45 (in the MORNING).

So -- all my best-laid plans, thwarted. By too-early-lunches, chilly May days and not listening to my husband's suggestion.

Oh, and P.S. I made Lester a turkey sandwich with Monterey Jack cheese. Guess whose sandwich Cary wanted to eat? "I don't want peanut butter and jelly," he said. "I want a TURKEY sandwich."

Curses. Foiled again.

They can't "let it go"

We have relaxed quite a bit on the TV-watching thing, allowing the kids to watch Netflix cartoons on weekends, and when Clair is either 1) getting her hair done or 2) getting her nebulizer treatment.

It's amazing to me how well TV glues them to one spot, and personally, I'm not that mad about it.

But we still haven't graduated to movies -- mostly because the kids still seem way too young to me to sit through two hours of plot development. They can sit for two hours, but only when there are changes in episodes or even whole shows. But one thing for two hours? Nope, not my kids.

So color me surprised when one day Dean was walking around our house singing, "Let it Go," the award-winning and oft-imitated song from the Disney movie "Frozen."

The kids haven't seen the movie and he had no idea where he'd heard it. So I showed him -- and the other two -- the video, with the princess, or whatever she is, belting out her therapeutic theme song in an icy tundra.

Now what did I go and do that for?

Ever since then, Lester and I have been forced to play the video - connected to our iPod dock, so it fills the house -- over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over (you get the picture). I have to play it in the car, streaming through the speakers, no matter where we're going. And when the car stops, I have to keep playing it, all tinny and small through my phone as we walk to the house. I had to create a Disney playlist on my Pandora account and hope, no pray, the song comes on first in the playlist. NPR in the morning has been trumped by "Let it Go." I used to be able to distract them with Katy Perry ("Look kids, a LION!") or, my favorite, Pharrell's "Happy." But no more. It's all ice cold Disney princess emo all the time.

Kill. Me. Now.

The only saving grace is listening to Dean try his absolute hardest to learn every single word and match Idina Menzel's passion with all his might. And watching Clair do interpretive dance to the song, twirling and waving her hands, ballerina-like, then running through the house on her tippy-toes, dancing. Once, Lester said Clair "caught the Holy Ghost" when the song came on the iPod. I seriously almost choked from laughing. 
[Note: Do you know what "catching the Holy Ghost" is? If not, you won't get why that was so funny. But take my word for it, it was.] 
Even Cary, who is not really a big performer -- even he gets into it, singing whatever words he can make out and doing a little old man jig.

It's hilarious to watch them enjoy a song so much. Truth be told, I actually rather enjoy their zeal for the song. They truly love it (who knows why. what the hell is a frozen fractal anyway?) and it makes me so happy to see them so moved by music.

Maybe one day I'll get them hooked on New Edition!!