Goth princess

For Christmas, Bede gave me the Playmobil goth queen:



The description of the dolly was "evil queen," but since when did a penchant for wearing black and gold with heavy eye-makeup make a person "evil?" Silly, woozy marketers. The dolly was obviously a goth queen. As Lucia introduced Esmeralda to the other dollies, she said, "The goth queen walks in the night." How did she know? The child is uncanny.

This rare, discontinued Playmobil dolly is now on my wishlist:



This dolly is billed as a "witch." How many witches do you know (even stereotypical ones) wear hennins? Again, the marketers are addled. As we established earlier, hennins are now known as fashion accessories for fairy tale princesses. Ergo, this dolly is a goth princess. Esmeralda is probably the auntie of the goth princess, not the mother. Think about it: If the goth princess' mother were a goth queen, the princess would probably rebel by dressing in shirts with Peter Pan collars and wearing sensible shoes.

You might wonder why the goth princess has a "fillet of a fenny snake" in her hand if she's not a stereotypical witch brewing amphibious/reptilian stew? I'm glad you asked. Remember in the book of Exodus, when Aaron, brother of Moses, threw down a staff in front of Pharoah? Remember that the staff turned into a serpent?

Somehow, there's a connection.

Play on a Snow Day

Snow days and sick days have kept Lucia out of school for a week. She is too young and I am too old to enjoy time off from school. Despite trips out into the snow, we were both restless. Yesterday, I brought out the Playmobil playground set pieces I'd been collecting over the past while, and sewed a playmat to bring it all together. Sewing the playmat was a pleasant diversion from potty-training. To date, potty-training is the most tedious part of parenting for me. Dan Zanes said, “I can't get too emotional about songs about learning to eat with a fork or tie my shoe." I'm guessing that Zanes is in no hurry to compose a learn-to-use-the-potty song. Neither am I, but if I do become inspired, I'll let you know. The lyrics will be to the tune of "Going to the Zoo."

Eleventh Day of Christmas

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
A new (on sale) Nativity.

The Nativity set I had admired for much of December 2006 was on sale at 40% off. As there were a couple days of Christmas left (ending on Epiphany, January 6th), Lucia and I arranged the set on the hutch with the Magi traveling one shelf above the creche.

If you're wondering why the Magi are traveling with a giraffe and a zebra, it's probably because the folk-art creators, Maurice and Kelly Dallas, mainly craft Noah's Ark sets. Follow the link to see some of their more intricate designs (and no, our on-sale Nativity set was not originally hundreds of dollars as the link might indicate).

Tomorrow, the House of Glee is having a Three Kings' Day party with a few friends. This is the first time since college since I've organized any such venture. Traditionally, the baker puts a bean into the cake batter and whomever gets the coin is the king/queen of Three Kings Day.* In Louisiana, a tiny plastic baby takes the place of the coin and whomever gets the plastic baby has to throw the next party. All these years I never took seriously the possibility of someone breaking teeth or choking on the various objects** I dropped into the batter, but now that I have a child, I'm Ms. Safety Woman. I shall bake a hazelnut into the cake to prevent the former and make sure everyone mashes the cake to bits before eating in order to prevent the latter. We have some Christmas crackers we forgot to bring out on December 25th, so we'll distribute the crackers at the party. As each cracker comes with a paper crown (in addition to the corny joke and the prize), it seems appropriate that we ended up saving the crackers for Three Kings Day.


Adoration of the Girlie


Adoration of the Playmobil dollies

Notes:
*While the Biblical passages do not state how many Magi/Wise Folk/Kings actually traveled to visit Jesus, tradition holds that there were three Magi, and their names were Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar. I honor the tradition.

**For example, a ring symbolized who'd get married next and a coin symbolized who'd come into great wealth.

Welcome to the Dollhouse (expansion)

The dollhouse mansion itself is a present from Lucia's grandma bestowed last summer. The big Christmas present for Lucia tomorrow is the addition of a floor (two rooms!) plus three staircases, courtesy of Lucia's great-aunt Brigit. Perhaps this is wish-fulfilment on all our parts, as the best term for the house of the House of Glee is "wee." Also, the House of Glee does not have internal stairs. When we want to access the basement, we have to go outside to do so. Most of the time, this arrangement suits us just fine. I'd rather go outside to the basement to do laundry than to have to drive or walk up the hill to the laundromat. We can store chemicals and pokey items in the basement without worrying that Lucia will get ahold of them. Still, there are times when we'd appreciate another room or two in the house, plus a flight of stairs. We'd talked about chopping a hole in the floor to set up a flight of stairs, but then we'd have to forgo our bathroom.

In lieu of a spacious house, Lucia gets to play with a roomy dollhouse. Bede set up the extra floor not too long ago, and I arranged for the little dollies to be festive. You'll notice Cleopatra and Princess Saffront hanging out with some of the children. Down on the first floor, Beethoven plays air piano:




While much of the fun seems innocuous enough, it looks as if Simon the Wizard has placed some sort of enchantment on Mr. Frumble:



Maybe Simon the Wizard made Marie the mermaid's bathtub disappear:



Who knows for sure? By tomorrow morning, Lucia will have new arrangements for her dollies.

(By the way, Playmobil, I don't want to sound tokenistic, but I do wish that the company would produce more dollies who aren't Caucasian. That's my one quibble with the company. Think about it, especially for your princess line.)

Ah, if only it were this easy to add an addition onto our bungalow.

Juggling to the Beatles

Click here for the juggling video

Performer Chris Bliss juggles to the Beatles' "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" off of Abbey Road. Thanks to Rob Hampton, my guitar teacher, for the link.


Playmobil Beatles photo by Svencentral

Three Wishes and One Too Many Shaggy Dogs

Most of the improvisational stories I tell Lucia have simple plots. I learned early on that Lucia was less concerned with what the characters did than what their names were and what they wore. Originally, I distracted a howling Lucia in the bathtub by telling her about her dolly Pepper’s eleven brothers and sisters. I gave them all flower names, i.e. Hyacinth, Carnation, Lily-of-the-Valley, et al, and Lucia supplied them with differently colored capes. When Pepper’s numerous siblings go swimming, they all have to have water-wings, flippers, snorkeling gear and spectacular bathing suits. These shaggy-dog tales I tell have made bath-time much more endurable.

Bedtime is a different story, literally. As much as Lucia would like for me to tell long, sprawling anecdotes about Pepper, Queen Cleopatra, Princess Saffron (Pepper’s auntie and mother of Salt) and Simon the Wizard, I want to move the bedtime ritual along so that I have the evening for my grown-up time. Again, they are not big on plot, but they serve the purpose for which I intend. Here is a story I often tell Lucia:

One day, Cleopatra decided to go fishing on her barge. She dropping the fishing line over the side of the barge and waited for a fish to bite. Very soon, she felt a tug on the line. “That must be a fish!” Cleopatra said. She pulled up the line, but instead of a fish, there was a bottle attached to the end of the line.

Cleopatra opened the bottle. Out popped a fairy. “Thank you for freeing me, Cleopatra!” the fairy said. “In thanks, I will grant you three wishes. What is your first wish?”
[Lucia replies: “A mermaid dolly!”]
“You shall have your mermaid dolly,” the fairy said. “What is your second wish?”
[Lucia: A hat!”]
“Here is your hat,” the fairy said, and gave Cleopatra a purple hat with a red feather. “What is your third wish?”
[Lucia: “Two scepters!”]
“Here you are,” the fairy said, presenting Cleopatra with one gold scepter and one silver scepter.

“Now that I have granted you three wishes, I shall fly about the world to see what I’ve missed,” the fairy said. Cleopatra sailed her barge home, then played with her mermaid dolly, wore her hat, and waved around her two scepters. She told her friends all about the fairy and the three wishes, and they thought that maybe they too would find a fairy trapped in a bottle. However, when they went out fishing in the Nile River, all they ever found in the water was fish.

The End




Left to right: Cleopatra the Queen, Simon the Wizard, Marie the Mermaid, Lucia the Girl

Afterword
Yesterday, Lucia found a Playmobil mermaid dolly in the shoe she had placed by the fireplace for St. Nicholas’s visit. Throughout the day, she looked affectionately at the dolly, newly named Marie, and said, “It’s on your wish-list!” When Lucia gets older, she'll learn those folktales about the fallacies of wishing for too much, a la "Fisherman and His Wife," and all its derivatives. For now, her wishes are tangible and reasonable.

Story and Song Girl

This is Lucia's dolly named Pepper, accompanied by a pet unicorn:



This is Lucia's drawing of Pepper:


Today, Lucia asked me to tell her a story about Pepper. I replied that it was Lucia's turn to tell a story. With some prompting,* Lucia told me this story:

Once upon a time there were two little girls named Salt and Pepper, and they lived with their mommy and daddy in a house off in the distance. And they went to the store, and they saw Dan Zanes. And they had a railing, and they went up on the roof, and they climbed back down. She got Superman in her hand. Pepper has a dress and Pepper has a magic diamond shaped buckle. They came over the bridge and there was a troll under the bridge.

Could a parent be prouder? I think not. If that weren't enough, I received my new storytelling step-stool** today, and Lucia promptly claimed it, then asked for her little guitar. We jammed for awhile to "Buffalo Gals" and then I made up a song about Superman and Batman:

Key of C (in the style of the Dead Kennedys):

We're goin' to a tea-party
We're goin' to a tea-party
We're goin' to a tea-party
With Superman and Batman.

Superman's gonna pour the tea,
Batman's gonna bake the scones,
Green Lantern's gonna to cut the cake,
And I'm gonna eat it all.

We're goin' to a tea-party... etc.



Oy! I'm kvelling.

*Prompting=Me saying, "Yeah!" after every phrase.

**The step-stool is an heirloom made from an old chest of drawers. Note in the photo that Lucia's own step-stool is near her little table in the back, yet she was indignant when I suggested as much.

Snow White Ramble

This Playmobil Special representation of the wicked queen in Grimms' Snow White fairy tale is currently not in production. On eBay, the "buy it now" price is $25.00 USD. I don't need the dolly, but I sure do wish I had clothes like hers. If Playmobil made a line of goth figures, I would be tempted. Very tempted.

Speaking of Snow White, I hate the Disney version.* Snow White needs the following items in order to work for me:

1)The wicked queen demands the huntsman to bring back the lung and liver, not the heart of Snow White. The lung and liver represent the life-essence and spirit of Snow White. The heart is smoochy-sentimental.

2)When Snow White finds the dwarfs' house in the woods, it's quite meticulous and clean. Snow White gets to live with the dwarfs as long as she makes sure it stays clean. Dwarves are industrious beings, not slobs living in basements.

3)The wicked queen in disguise visits Snow White three times in three different guises. This is important. Most of us make mistakes in judging the character of other people without it making headline news. However, Snow White making that mistake three times brings to light some uncomfortable recognition of ourselves. (Maybe you're wiser than I am, but know I've believed the words of liars.)

4)After biting the poisoned apple, Snow White wakes from her coma after the prince's huntsmen stumble upon a rock, thus dislodging the bit of apple in Snow White's throat. There is no wake-up kiss. That's another fairy tale.

5)In the end, the wicked queen has to put on red-hot iron slippers and dance until she falls down dead. She does not get chased over a cliff by disgruntled forest animals. Where's the satisfaction in the Disney ending? Violence in fairy tales is not gratuitous, but it is just. As Anne Sexton writes,

"Beauty is a simple passion,
but, oh my friends, in the end
you will dance the fire dance in iron shoes."

You can read Anne Sexton's poem about Snow White in its entirety here. For those of you who say that you don't read poetry ("sissy stuff that rhymes" as Nigel Molesworth would say), Sexton refers to Snow White as a "dumb bunny." Are you yet convinced?

*Disney's Sleeping Beauty, which veers way off from all the other known variants, remains one of my guilty pleasures. I'm not sure why I make allowances for "Sleeping Beauty" that I don't for "Snow White," but I suspect Tchaikovsky's music has something to do with it.

Shadows

Along with planets, Lucia has discovered shadows. I often come across these configurations of action figures placed in the sun. Note that Beethoven is sitting on a piano bench in the traditional storytelling stance.