Dads and Star Wars. I never had a chance.

Jedi Partay Redux, continued

Part II: Location, location, location
Stanford E-Quad. Perfect. Grand porticos, long, wide paths, spacious lawns, grassy knolls, ancient tree in an arena.


Part III: The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
5:00 p.m. Kids arrive; free time
5:15 p.m: Kids assemble sandwiches to eat later.
5: 30 p.m. Treasure Hunt
5:50 p.m. Eat sandwiches, unveil and eat cake
6: 15 Light saber combat instruction
7:15 Free time
7:30 The End

Part IV: Gang aft agley
Which is to say, "Often go awry"--I'm quoting Scottish poet Robert Burns, from whose poem "To a Mouse" the line comes: "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/ Gang aft agley". (Brainy, but I can't take credit. I remembered Robert Burns and his poem thanks to its appearance in a wonderful book called The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Hidden Gallery. It's the second in what I think will be a three-part series, Part III of which I am eagerly awaiting. If I get a spare hour (hah!) I'll write about it.)

But I digress. So. Gang aft agley:

Jedi Partay Redux: Tai's 8th birthday

Part I: The Cake

This year, I got to bake and frost a cake from scratch, instead of having to order a dreadful, (and dreadfully) overpriced Baskin Robbins ice cream cake featuring a Star Wars theme. All the um, wisdom literature warns us not to attach our happiness to ridiculous stuff like cakes, but there it is. In my still unenlightened mind, homemade cakes expresss All That is Good (love, mostly) and franchise store-bought cakes topped with licensed mini-figures are evil incarnate.

Which is not to say that our Good Cake was not topped with licensed minifigures. Oh, no. License upon license upon license, actually. Dan arranged several of his LEGO Star Wars/Clone Wars guys and a small LEGO military vehicle in a tiny battle scene. The First Battle of Geonosis (the Arena Battle), to be specific.

However, this flurry of licensing atop my devil's food cake with buttercream frosting (original recipe from Grandma J, who baked this cake for her children) was mitigated by the following:

• Dan doesn't own most of the minifigures represented in the actual battle. So he improvised, figuring correctly that his friends probably didn't even know what the First Battle of Geonosis was and therefore wouldn't notice or care about the missing figures.
• The battleship was of Dan's own design.
• Dan arranged the figures himself at the party.

We watched a clip of the battle on YouTube

to get the frosting just right—a sort of terra cotta/sandstone color. The end result was dangerously close to pink, but since the guys on top were fighting a battle to the death, it didn't matter.

Ta-daa:

So for those of you keeping score at home, it looks like this in my book:

Star Wars franchise..…..........................................................+10 Dark Side

Battle of Geonosis (from Episode II: The Clone Wars)..….....+5 DS

With LEGOs..…......................................................................+5 DS

But LEGO's cuten up violence....................................................................+3 Light Side

And were improvised.................................................................................. +5 LS

Dan-designed starship..................................................................................+5 LS

decades-old cake recipe..............................................................................+10 LS

homemade frosting.....................................................................................+10 LS

the exact color of the dust on Geonosis....................................+ 5 DS........+5 LS for effort

Dan did all the decorating............................................................................+5 LS

So that's Dark Side 25, Light Side 43.

Up Next: Location and Letting Go 

  

Martha Stewart Days, Jedi training, drums

Happy Valentine's Day. Raaaargh!

Didn't get a chance to post around Valentine's Day, when we got all DIY. But here's a photo of Dan's shoebox Valentine's Day mailbox (you remember those, right?). They were supposed to make them at home and bring them to school. The only rule was no violence. And of course we made the Valentine's cards as well--little foam hearts with glowstick arrows. Okay, honestly? RT and I did most of the work. I'm sure Dan would have been happy to slap a couple of stickers on the box and buy and distribute a chintzy little $3.00 pack of Valentines from Walgreens. But I wanted to do the project and Dan let me. I own that--it's all about me and my need to make stuff from scratch. But hey, it was fun family time.

Sith Lord Darth Dan vs. Emily
Each pair in the class choreographed a routine--and each time, it was the Sith who won.

Then I made Dan a Jedi robe. First time I've ever used the sewing machine that RT got me for my birthday eight years ago. But what a great way to break it in. I measured Dan, drew the pattern on taped-together pieces of tissue paper (the packing kind, not Kleenex), had him help me design the neck fastener, the whole nine yards. My intent is to make one for Johnny before he grows into Dan's.

Dan wore the robe this week to his final "LED Lightsaber Combat" class--essentially a stage combat class that he's taking through Parks and Rec. The teacher is a fencing/martial arts guy as well as (I assume) a Star Wars fan--he's built tons of awesome LED lightsabers and a couple of blasters as well.We've hired him to do Dan's birthday party in a few weeks, so stay tuned for news and photos.



Oh, yeah. One final thing. I caved and we bought Dan a full drum set on craigslist. $200 for the entire thing, which is a bargain even I couldn't pass up. It's not a quality set--billed as "great for beginning drummers", and already dented, and the cymbals, according to reviews online, are awful. But everything works and it makes tons of noise--what more could a 7-year-old rock star wannabe want?

Boys and nonfiction, redux

Remember what I said about Star Wars encyclopedias being fiction? Scratch that. Reverse it. Star Wars encyclopedias are nonfiction. Yes, it's true. According to Dan's school librarian, all reference books--even fantasy ones--are considered nonfiction. I know, right? Who knew?

Get into the escape pod!

Dan is playing with his friend R. Star Wars, of course. The two of them are under heavy fire from storm troopers who have boarded the ship.

R: Chioom! Chioom-chioom! Get in the escape pod first! I'll hold 'em off!
D: No, you get in first!
R: No, you get in!
D: No! You get in!
R: No, you!
D: Fine! (gets into the couch-and-blanket fort/escape pod)Okay, I'm in! Get in, Captain!
R: No, not yet!
D: Get in, already!
R: No!
D: Come on! Get in!
R: Okay, I'm getting in! (the fort collapses) Ahh! The pod is damaged!
D: Get out!

Selling (or buying) out...again.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Captain Rex shoes from Stride Rite.

And the black strap/eyeshields light up blue when you walk. Both boys got a pair today. I was pushing hard for sweatshop running shoes from Nike, but they loved these soooooo much that I just gave in. Dan got a Clone Wars lunchbox for school, too. Sigh.

Johnny knew right away that he wanted the Captain Rex shoes and nothing else. He tried them on, loved them, and gamely followed his brother around the store on his many test runs; Dan tested seven pairs of possible purchases before he, too, finally settled on the Captain Rex shoes.

Those test runs were a joy to watch--though I felt bad making the salesgirl fetch six pairs of shoes that we all knew he would reject in favor of Captain Rex. He would back waaay up and go sprinting earnestly around the shoe section, faking left, then right, and finally charging up and stopping in front of us in a pose like this:

photo courtesy of ragamala.net

...which he would hold for a couple of seconds before rising and giving his verdict. We were the only customers at the time, and the other salesgirl, with apparently nothing else to do, wandered casually over and watched him silently, smiling.

Pleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease

Mom, can you get these?

Ain't no party like a Jedi party

Now I know why people have their children's birthday parties at places other than home.

Two hours of mayhem, with breaks for cake and one game which required kids to be silent. Because it was all outside, and because the only food we served was cake and juice, there wasn't much mess to clean up, but I was not prepared for the astronomical levels of frenzied energy that seven little boys with pool-noodle lightsabers can generate. After the party, I was (and continue to be) exhausted.

Birthday boy, birthday cake, and letting go.

TZ turned seven today. At this very moment seven years ago, I was at the hospital, begging to be allowed to push the little bugger out--having forgotten to call the midwife before we left the house, we had to wait at the hospital for her to arrive before I was allowed to push. I look at my growing-up baby now and I can hardly believe that he's the same being that was squished up in my uterus that night.

He's not, really. The fetus would not have gone with me to Baskin-Robbins today and ordered the awful spray-painted-blue-with-red-trim Star Wars ice cream cake featuring Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader figurines brandishing lightsabers at each other for his birthday party two days hence. The fetus, still subject to my own hopes and dreams, would have grown up into a boy who clapped his hands with delight when I offered to bake him a cake in the shape of an astronaut, or maybe his favorite vegetable.

Boy Fun

Yesterday, TZ and his across-the-street friend TM did a little Jedi training in the empty lot next to TM's house. There was something so 1950's about it--just substitute popguns or toy rifles for the light sabers, and there we'd be in Mayberry. The boys eventually abandoned their weapons for hockey sticks and began mining for...rocks, I guess. Then TM slipped and fell into a huge mud puddle and went home (he hates getting dirty). TZ, left to his own devices, became Captain Rex/Anakin leading his men against an army of battle droids (see video).








Captain Rex asks for ice cream