Life and Times of Greg, Monica, & Maddie

Maddie Singing

I don't know if this will work or not, but try clicking here to hear a snippet of Maddie singing "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas."

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MUSHY SENTIMENTALITY ALERT!!

Our fourteen-day tour of the upper South has (sadly and gladly) come to an end and we are back in wintry Michigan where there are currently about three inches of snow on the ground, with more to follow. We moved from Fort Smith to Tull and Benton then finally on to Springfield. Much fun was had by all, but it does feel really good to be back in our own beds! Maddie sang for everyone and was so much more social this year--it was a delight to see her enjoy our families so much. She saw her old favorites like Grandma, Nonny, and the Pa-pa's, and found a few new favorites like A.J. and Millie the goat. (See above picture)

We were blessed by beautiful weather for practically the entire trip--it was sunny and fifty almost every day. In Fort Smith, the Texans were complaining of the cold but to us Northerners it was downright balmy. For me (Monica), the past two weeks were like a battery recharger that stored up the warm weather so that I can get through the long, cold winter ahead. I've discovered that I do not like winter. So the days of sun and temps in the sixties given to us by Mother Nature turned out to be my favorite Christmas present.

What I'm left with at the end of this long trip (besides a sore back from hauling all Maddie's presents), is the feeling that Christmas is really not about all the gifts and the food but about something so much more important. Yeah, I know, cliche bullmalarkey, right? But often things are cliches because they are true. Sure, I enjoyed the lovely robe and earrings from my parents and the camera from my in-laws. And Maddie enjoys her new toys (I think we took home a toy shop!). We are all very grateful. But if those things all went away and all we had was the fun and the memories of Christmas, we would still be very happy and we would still feel blessed. Conversely, if all we had were the presents and we hadn't visited anyone or connected with all our loved ones, it would have been a very sad Christmas indeed. MUSHY SENTIMENTALITY ALERT!!!: What is most important about the winter holidays like Christmas and Chanukah is the gathering together in the darkest time of year with the light of your loved ones and sharing the greatest joys of human existence like love and family and conversation. The presents just give us an excuse to meet! And of course it's not perfect--there are arguments and long trips and too much dessert--but that's what life is about! This wonderful, messy, joy and strife-filled life is never so evident as it is during the holidays. I think this is probably our last time to only do traditional gift-giving and receiving. It simply doesn't feel right to be wallowing in such over-abundance when there are millions of homeless AIDS orphans in Africa, seniors without anyone to care about them, women in Afghanistan who cannot hold up their head in public, and people without shelter in every major city in the world. If the joy of Christmas does not come primarily from the presents, then let's spend some our overabundance on those who need it the most. Let's turn Christmas into what Jesus would have wished for it to be.

I Better Be Good!

OK, so it's been a really long time since we've posted anything on the blog--so sue us! It's the last week of classes, and we haven't really had much to say. Yesterday was my last graduate acting class ever. Next semester we don't meet in an actual class, we just have independent studies and thesis performance credits. My professor informed the four of us MFA's that we had had a total of 400 hours of acting classes in our program. Five semesters worth! Combined with the four semesters of acting I had in undergrad, my grand total is somewhere around 700 hours! Good god--by this point, I better be pretty damn good! I'm scared to stop the classes and hit the real world, but I think I'm ready for it. So much of life is spent preparing for the next thing, but I have found that it's really important to savour the journey. And I do think that I've grown and improved vastly since entering this program. Now it's almost time to see what the rest of the world thinks. For your viewing enjoyment, here's a picture of me in one of the costumes from one of the shows I've done in the past few years. I was so happy about this costume because it was pretty! As a character actress, I don't often get to be pretty on stage so I turn all girly and silly when I do get something attractive. Pretty Pretty Princess!

Oh, Christmas Tree

For those of you who have been missing our postings, I'm terribly sorry for not posting in a few days. I could use the same old excuses, like "we were busy," "we forgot we had a blog," "a hippopotomas got stuck in our toliet; it began to overflow to the point that we were re-enacting 'Finding Nemo' inside our house; and then when the plumber-slash-scuba-diver got the hippo unstuck, we were carried into the toilet and out to sea; and now we just got back home after swimming the Grand River." But, alas, those would be lies. The truth is... it was a manatee that got stuck in the toilet, and we actually swam the Red Cedar River to get home.

As you can probably see from the picture and the title of this blog entry, we cut down our Christmas tree, brought it home, and decorated it. Now for those of you who are worried about the pain that the tree underwent during this surgical procedure, I can assure you that the most up-to-date anesthetics were used. The fun part of decorating the tree this year was seeing the change that happened in Maddie since a year ago. She was much more interested in helping decorate and remarked often regarding the beauty of each ornament. For those of you interested in what our tree looks like in the dark see below.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Monica's parents came up to help us celebrate, and we had a great time together! Monica made an exquisite cruelty-free, vegetarian feast and our next-door neighbor, Dorothy supplied a partial Turkey carcass for Alan's Thanksgiving enjoyment.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I decided to research the history of the holiday. I came across an excellent website that I recommend to everyone: http://www.plimoth.org/Library/Thanksgiving/thanksgi.htm.
It appears that like most cultural traditions the holiday has a little fact and a lot of myth. However, this should not degrade the holiday. Myths are a vital and necessary part of every culture and should be used to spread cultural values to the young.

It appears that the resounding theme of the Thanksgiving myth is the coming together of two different families and different cultures to simultaneously celebrate and lay aside the differences of the two groups. The story of the Pilgrims and the Native Americans dining together is a very important image to remember, especially now in light of what is going on in the world. With hope, everyone can use this Thanksgiving to pray for peace, work for love, and hope for a time when the "last resort" is never war.

I leave y'all with a poem that Monica picked out for this day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It feels good at the end of this Thanksgiving Day.

The Day is Done

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time,

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And tonight I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have a power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And comes like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Leaf Houses and the Circle of Life

Madeleine dining al fresco in her leaf house!

This weekend we raked the millions of leaves that fell in our yard. We had fifteen large leaf bags full! Madeleine always finds this an enjoyable chore--she really does help. This year, I introduced her to the joys of "leaf houses." Did you do this when you were a child? Or is this just me and my crazy family who are into pretend houses made of leaves? I fondly recall my foundations of foliage that I made each year after the leaves had fallen. It was truly one of my favorite times of the year and I think I did it even when I was 10 and 11 years old! And now I have passed on this to my daughter who enjoyed it just as much as I did. She set up a front porch, a dining room, a bedroom, even a bathroom! She had a delicious supper of leaves and berries sitting in her "dining room." As I was watching her, I remembered my mother telling me that she played in leaf houses when she was a child. What a small but lovely little thing to connect the three of us: my mother, myself, and now my daughter--we are all builders of leaf houses! We may not be too much alike in many ways, and we certainly all have our own personalities, but we were all at one time that little girl playing gleefully in our beautifully imagined leafy home. Now there's the circle of life for you!

Maddie's New Skill!!

When you're a speech pathologist, especially one that counsels parents on normal speech-language development, your child becomes one of the most intensive classes on child development that you can imagine! Today Maddie did an exciting thing. Now, I know that many of you out there won't find the beauty in this that I found, but please just humor me and nod and grin.

Today Maddie was writing on Monica's leg while we were snuggling in the bed this morning (OK, that might seem a little strange, but just keep reading). First of all, she wrote the word "MOM." Now, that is something that she has done before. We were impressed at first, but now it is soooooo eight months ago. The exciting thing that she did was add an "IE" to the end of it to make the word "Mommy!" You are thinking now, "but, Greg she spelled it wrong!" But no, no! What I am impressed with is that she DIDN'T spell it right. She has written the word "Mommy" before spelling it with a "Y," but when she did that she was copying it from what she had seen someone else write. This time she used the fact that her name "Maddie" is spelled with an "IE" AND it makes the same sound at the end that "Mommy" makes. So, she spelled it "M-O-M-I-E". And voila! we have rule-governed spelling that is brand new!

OK, for those of you who are still reading, I thank you for spending your precious time humoring a dad in doctoral school. I am very indebted to you, and I realize that I will need to make it up to you somehow. For those of you that are not still reading this, I don't have anything to say to you because you're not reading it anyway. :-)

I am leaving you with the logo from the program that I work with that is part of the whole process that has made me the nerd I am!

Eeny Meeny Miney Mo

Madeleine's way of solving every dispute in her life is with the old rhyme "Eeny Meeny Miney Mo, Catch a tiger by the toe, etc." No matter what the problem, no matter how small or large the situation, that simple little rhyme can fix it. To her, it is the ultimate in fairness and blind justice. She hasn't quite caught on yet that if you are doing it between two things or people, the second one always gets chosen. (In her version) Right now, it's a beautiful thing--I can't tell you how many problems it has quickly solved in our household. I'm sure as she gets older, things are going to get much more complicated and negotiations will take a great deal more time. For now, though, I'm happy with her decision-making methods. I couldn't help thinking today, what if the last resort in any dispute in the world was a game of Eeny Meeny Miney Mo? Not law suits, not divorce, not war; just a simple rhyme that hurts no one and could fairly deliver justice and equity throughout the land. What a beautiful thing! Instead of hanging chads, America could have just played Eeny Meeny Miney Mo between Bush and Gore--it certainly would have been more fair! Israel and Palestine could finally decide who gets what in Jerusulem! All without bloodshed! If only life could be so utopian and innocent--the world through the eyes of a child is a wonderful thing.

More Poetry

Okay, so maybe I'm too busy to do a "daily poetry offering," but I'll try to post at least a couple every week. This one's from one of my favorite poets, Robert Frost. I strangely have nearly thirty of his poems memorized--not on purpose, it just happened! This is a good one-enjoy!

Riders

The surest thing there is is we are riders,
And though none too successful at it, guiders,
Through everything presented, land and tide
And now the very air, of what we ride.

What is this talked-of mystery of birth
But being mounted bareback on the earth?
We can just see the infant up astride,
His small fist buried in the bushy hide.

There is our wildest mount--a headless horse.
But though it runs unbridled off its course,
And all our blandishments would seem defied,
We have ideas yet that we haven't tried.

Drama Parents, Drama Life

OK, so we are a very dramatic family. With all of us into the theatrical arts, we have a crazy, dramatic life. I was just noticing when we were driving Maddie to school today how nearly every thing we do is a creative dramatics activity. We were singing "Little Bunny Foo Foo" just like everyone does in the morning, and then Maddie starts changing the song. For those of you out there who may not be familiar with "Little Bunny Foo Foo" it goes something like this " Little Bunny Foo Foo went hoppin' throught the forest, scoopin' up the field mice and boppin' 'em on the head. (Now before PETA begins a protest, we must finish the song quickly to show how the poor, innocent field mice were rescued) Down came the good fairy, and she said, 'Little Bunny Fu Fu, I don't want to see you scooping up the field mice and boppin' 'em on the head!' I'll give you three more chances, and then I'll turn you into a goon!"

Well, as you can imagine the plot thickens as the Bunny Foo Foo tries to conquer his addiction to field mice scoopin' to no avail. He uses up all of his chances, then the Good Fairy comes down and issues him the ultimate in punishment. She turns him into a Goon!!! The moral of this story is "Hare today, goon tomorrow!"

Now, you may be saying that this story sounds dramatic enough as it is. But no, no. My little daughter Maddie, had to shake it up a bit. She began to change the title of the GOOD fairy to be all sorts of other types of Fairies (all played by her parents--mostly Monica). The fairy changed from "good" to "rainbow" to "hippy" to "nuts" to "Arkansas-Hernia Fairy" (see previous blog entry for expanation of the latter). Such is the life of a theatre family!

Please, share your own stories of drama and creativity so that we don't feel entirely crazy.

"No Autographs Please!"