Saturday afternoon my family and I attended the matinee performance of Charlotte's Web at First Stage Children's Theater. The cast that performed was The Radiant cast, and they were amazing! I particularly liked the lamb, and Templeton the rat, oh and the goose too! I would highly recommend this play, which runs through November 16th. There were plenty of open seats, both on the main floor and in the balcony -- I'm sure that you could walk up and purchase last minute tickets if you wished.

Help me out please, I need your advice. As a parent of a seven year old whom, in my opinion, is growing into a very nice young lady, I'm having issues with one of the friends from the neighborhood that my daughter plays with on a fairly regular basis. I won't go into all of the details, nor all of the examples of poor friendship this girl has portrayed, but yesterday, around 4:30 p.m., I believe this friend crossed the line.

Here's what happened. My daughter was practicing her violin, I was in the kitchen, and my husband was in the family room reading a book. The chair where he was sitting is right in the middle of our front window, where he has the vantage point of seeing the driveway and the front door. The neighbor friend, and another girl, walked up to the front door, rang the doorbell, then turned and ran! He shot up from the chair, ran outside, and the girls were already a yard away standing on the corner.

He yelled to them, "What did you want?"

The neighbor friend replied, "To see if Zoe could play."

However, my husband is no dummy, and retorted, "Why did you ring the doorbell and then run? It's not polite."

I don't know what her response was, but she didn't come back, and my husband did not invite her back either.

This girl is pushing my buttons, and more than that, she's reaching the limits of what I'm willing to put up with in a playmate for my daughter. Now, I'm no goody two shoes, however, I have learned from my mistakes. I realize exactly where the route I was going down in my school years took a drastic turn in a different direction. I know which girl pulled me away from my friends and before you know it, DIFFERENT PATH. I don't want this for my kid, specifically today, I don't want her to think that it's ever okay to ring someone's doorbell and then run off. Where does it go from there? Egging homes? Toilet paper in the trees? Grafitti on the driveway?

What do you think? Harmless fun, or not very good behavior for a "friend"? What would you do if your child's usual playmate rang your doorbell and then ran?

The American Girl Doll catalog has arrived at my house, and you might remember what Zoe did to the catalog last year.

You can imagine my concern when she asked me for the black Sharpie marker, right?

“Are you going to draw mustaches and beards on the dolls again?” I asked her.

“Noooooooo.” She told me, while blushing behind the pages of the catalog. “I’m going to circle the things that I want.”

I found her a marker and she started circling the dolls, the cute dresses, and a lot of dogs, cats, and other animals that the dolls now have available.

When Zoe turned six, we took her to the American Girl Doll store in Chicago and let her pick out a doll. She chose Nicki. How often does she play with Nicki? NOT OFTEN ENOUGH. So I felt it was my obligation as a mom to point out to her that she doesn’t even play with Nicki very much. To which she replied, “That’s because I don’t have any time.”

Oh really? Please, do go on….

“I have to go to school, do my homework, watch dad play Mario Galaxy, go to swimming, blah blah blah….”

She didn’t really say blah, blah, blah …. but I was stuck on WATCH DAD PLAY MARIO GALAXY and I lost focus on whatever else she was too busy doing to play with the doll for whom she was circling things for in the catalog.

Her father has been playing Mario Galaxy for weeks now! When I get home from work, the two of them are in the Green Room (that’s what we call our office/computer/game room). He’s flailing the wii-mote all over the place as Mario runs around on the screen, while she sits on the love seat and cheers him on. How many freaking levels are there to Mario Galaxy?  I’d sure like to know, because once that game is over it’ll free up a huge chunk of her time so that she can go back to playing with Nicki (and all of the circled catalog items, apparently).

As a subscriber to First Stage Children's Theater, I've received three complimentary tickets to You Bug Me! for Saturday, October 25th at 7 p.m. I'm unable to use these tickets, therefore I'm offering them to the first person who'd like them. (My email address is in the sidebar.)

This is a New Play Workshop, and I've included information from the First Stage website to explain what that means, as well as what You Bug Me! is about.

The New Play Workshop features readings by our talented Theater Academy students. Following each performance, there will be an extended talk-back where we welcome and value your input. Your opinions are crucial and we would love to hear what you think about plays being considered for our main stage.

All performances are in the Youth Arts Hall at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center – 325 W. Walnut St.
Tickets may be purchased at the door for $5. Subscribers have received their complimentary tickets to the New Play Workshops in their season ticket materials. Seating is general admission and limited, so please plan on arriving early.

YOU BUG ME!
Saturday, October 25, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Recommended Ages 6+

Pico the fly and Estavan the Earwig are best friends, but their desire to win the Super Soil contest threatens to tear them apart. Laughs abound in this lively new musical set amongst a world of insects.

I still remember the day I realized that my husband-to-be had a down comforter. It was the winter of 1995 and I was experiencing freezing cold nights in my third floor apartment. No amount of plastic on the windows could stop the breeze from seeping through into my bedroom. I had flannel sheets, and a cat, both of which provided some warmth, but he had a down comforter, and let me tell you that was exactly what was missing from my life.

I had always wanted a down comforter, but they only came in white, and my mother wouldn’t allow it due to the fact that it was white. Now, I could have easily bought a duvet to cover it, but you know, I just don’t think they were widely available in the late 80’s and early 90’s. And, I didn’t know about them either. A du-what?

I’ve established that Zoe is allergic to feathers, and I’ve removed all of the feathers from her bedroom, and the rest of the house. However, there’s a big ruffled problem in my room — and that’s the down comforter and let me count, SEVEN feather pillows on my bed. Four of them are mine, three are my husband’s, and quite honestly, he could live with just two. But I need all four.

Anyhow, I obviously need to get rid of them. I’ve only really replaced one or two pillows at a time, allowing the appropriate ‘breaking in’ period that my body needs to get used to sleeping with a different pillow. Now I’ve got to replace every single one of them!

And my comforter too! This’ll be hard as it represents our love story. Sure, it’s not the original comforter — that’s sealed up in a storage bag and placed up high in my closet — but it represents the warmth he brought to my life, and the warmth that I brought his.

Getting rid of our blankie, oh this is going to be struggle.

My daughter, Zoe, was tested for allergies this week, she’s allergic to: mites, trees (pollen), molds, and feathers. We didn’t have her tested for any food allergies, there’s only so much room on a kids back for testing. Yesterday I spent my entire afternoon cleaning and de-allergy-ing her bedroom. I’m still working on the rest of the house.

I had allergy testing done four years ago to see what was causing me to break out in hives. We determined that I’m allergic to Aleve, and I haven’t touched it since. However, I’m also highly allergic to raspberries and shrimp, which I don’t even like and don’t eat, but four years later that is what I’m still quoting as my allergies. Aleve, raspberries, shrimp. But, after Zoe’s testing it was recommended that perhaps I should pull out my testing sheet and see what else there was.

Okay. Here is my list: cats (CATS!!), grass (lovely), molds, hops, rice (RICE!!), navy beans, string beans, waxed beans, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce (WHAT? people can be allergic to lettuce??), onion, coconut (KILL ME NOW!), hazelnut (does that include hazelnut coffee?), pork, whole eggs (if it’s in cake does that count?), allspice, cloves, cantaloupe/muskmelon, crab, and scallops.

It didn’t help that when were at the allergist I was one day into being diagnosed with bronchitis. The nurse was pretty clear with me that bronchitis is what comes after ignoring all of the HEY YOU ARE HAVING ALLERGY SYMPTOMS YOU IDIOT signs.

Really? I guess I never put the two together. Sinus and chest congestion = signs of allergies. I always waited until I was breaking out in hives, AND THEN it meant HEY! ALLERGIES!!! Only then would I take a Benadryl, Allegra, or Pepcid AC and wait to see if my face was going to swell.

Of course, my cat sleeps on my pillow, there is grass all around me outside, and we throw open the windows when it’s nice out, letting all of the pollens in the house. It looks like I have to allergy proof my own bedroom too.  

This year we have season tickets to First Stage Children's Theater. We attended our first performance yesterday afternoon, Giggle, Giggle Quack. In a word, it was fantastic! If you are a fan of the Duck and Farmer Brown series by Doreen Cronin, you'll surely enjoy it as well. If you haven't read any of Cronin's Duck books (Duck for President and Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type to name a couple), you are missing out on the mischievous barn animals and their note writing abilities. The play was adapted by James E. Grote, with music and lyrics by George Howe.

Imagine back to when you were a kid, left in the care of a babysitter, and all the wild things you'd convince your sitter that it was okay to do. Ice cream and popcorn before bed? YES! Staying up late to watch television? Of course! My parents always let me! 

Farmer Brown goes on vacation and leaves Duck, Hen, Pig, and Cow with his brother Bob. Bob, who is from the city, is extremely guillable and not only does he order pizza for the animals, he also hands out electric blankets to them. One morning Duck forgot to change the note that Farmer Brown left and the animals race across the barn yard in slow motion while the theme to Chariots of Fire plays. Will they get to the note in time? You'll have to see for yourself, the play runs through October 19th and my family highly recommends it.