Frozen Forever!!!

Frozen has overtaken our household.   Just in case there is someone who isn’t familiar with this epidemic (aka you don’t have young girls in your home; or really, if you live under a rock! ) Frozen is the Disney movie released last fall and is now on video.     It is a very cute show – the first time.

Our girls went to the movie in theaters .   Then their daycare bought the soundtrack and they listen to it at school - often.   That is when the singing started to get serious.   They constantly break into “Let it Go” or “Do you want to Build a Snowman” at a moments notice.     Next, YouTube was discovered and the fact they could watch the songs from Frozen was amazing (to them) and hours worth of entertainment at a time.   Yesterday Clara came home from daycare and every time you would say “Elsa” she would just giggle uncontrollably.  Not sure why Elsa is funny now, but she is.

We weren’t the parents that immediately gave them the movie when it came out on DVD.   We knew we had a 9 hour drive to Nebraska coming up so they had to wait till Easter to get the movie.   In the car with headphones on they would be in complete silence and all of a sudden there would be giggling or a concert in our backseat as they followed along to the music.

The girls would pretend they were characters from the movie.   They named their butterflies from church Elsa and Anna.  They named pretty much everything Elsa and Anna actually.   Grace even had Clara convinced it was Anna who has powers from the movie – I am not sure what the purpose of this one was but Clara was sure it was true.  Clara even watched Frozen two more times and was still telling Jason and I Anna had powers.  We had to have a serious discussion on this one to make her change her mind it was Elsa.

The best though was a concert staged for the parents by Grace.  She wanted to sing us Frozen songs like a movie star.   As you can see from the video, she was wanting to do this uninterrupted.   Her little sister though wanted to be part of the act.   Our little Diva continued through the whole song without stopping.
 

 

 

Many parents I am sure can relate to Frozen-mania.   Overall it has been harmless but I will be glad when they decide to “Let it Go”.

Bath Time!

Bath time in the evening at our house can take upwards of an hour for the girls.  Jason and I switch off responsibility of this task as it is so time consuming.   Bath time is a time for make believe and games.   Different games occur for different parents also.  

The first reoccurring game we remember playing over and over and over was Snow White.   Grace would play Snow White and the parent would play all supporting characters.   Once Clara was old enough to take baths with her sister the role of dwarf became her character.   So each night the wicked queen would ask the mirror who the most fairest one of all would be and become enraged (which the parent played up and Grace found hilarious) it was Snow White and not her.   There would always be a prop of an apple to eat and Snow White would fall asleep.   Then one (or more) princes would come and see if they could wake her up.   The finale would be the prince and princess would go to his castle and play then get married.    So we stuck fairly close to the original story but occasionally an extra prince would show up or the apple wouldn’t be poison the first time or other twists.



Grace used to line up the toys at the bath - including the ice cream cone pieces

Lately, the game played when I give them baths is “hair cutter”.    My name is Leslie Lou, and they are my clients.   Grace is Miss Brandie and Clara is Miss Belinda.   Miss Brandie has a girl named Stella (who I think is about Grace’s age from the stories Miss Brandie tells) and plenty of dogs and cats.   Miss Brandie is often graduating – either from high school or college and is sometimes getting a job at Nestle or going on vacation to Florida or China.    Miss Belinda’s character isn’t quite as developed, she is just Miss Belinda at the hair cutters.     Sometimes when Leslie Lou is very busy at the shop she needs assistance from Raul (Jason) with part of the spa treatment.   This Spa Miss Brandie and Miss Belinda attend must be very fancy as often there are requests to  stay for a movie and also sleep overnight at the spa.   Most times both requests are granted.



Grace at the hair cutters

The hair cutter game is not initiated when it is Jason’s night for baths.  Instead there is an ice cream game he and the girls play.   The girls have a toy ice cream cone in the bath with four removable scoops of ice cream all different flavors.    Clara & Grace play the shop keeper and Jason orders his flavors of cone.   Sometimes the shop keeper gives the customer what he wants, sometimes she doesn’t.   Apparently there is a very specific order of how this game is played and how the ice cream is eaten by the customer.   Every time I am asked to play this game I am told I am eating ice cream wrong or ordering the ice cream wrong.   To me, it is like going into the shop for the soup Nazi from Seinfeld!

Clara posing for the camera

You’re the One that I Want!

Many of you already know the girls (especially Clara) like the songs from Grease.  But I thought I would give the history of how this came about and the depth of their love.  In October 2013 on our way down to St. Louis we were stuck in the hotel and needed to find a cartoon to help the girls calm down prior to going to bed.   No cartoons available so we went instead with the musical Grease as they both love music.     They were hooked.    We ended up having to turn off the TV as Grace would not go to sleep with the show on.   For the rest of the trip they were trying to remember the songs and asking questions about the movie.    As this never really let up we ended up recording the movie and letting them watch the ABCFamily version of it.   More singing.   More requests for Grease.   Then the ultimate happened – they got the soundtrack as a present.   It became bedtime music and the most requested songs of our house.   (I do believe Frozen though has taken it’s place now). 

Clara is the biggest fan, pretending she is Sandy and the rest of us are other characters like Danny and Rhizzo.    She gets a kick out of the song “Sandy” as John Travolta sings Sandy....Baby....   And she doesn’t understand Baby is a term of endearment, she believes he is calling her a baby.    Overall this addiction has been cute and I am hoping we can take them to the Muny this summer to see Grease as a play.   

However, Grease is for adults and not three year olds to understand fully so there have been some problems with this.   The girls were one day singing the Beauty School Drop Out song and one of the lines says “Unless she was a  Hooker!”   It was a  big surprise when both girls were singing this around the house.   Although Grace insisted this was really about fishing we eventually got agreement not to sing this part of the song in public or at home. 

Is she an 18 year old frat boy or 3 year old princess?

We had a recent round of colds in our house which hit both girls.  They weren’t bad colds, but they did have a terrible hacking cough that sounded awful and made it hard for all to sleep.  We tried every trick we could think of to help soothe this cough which included as a last resort baby vapor rub on stomachs.   This still wasn’t much releif for anyone but luckily after a couple of days the cough calmed down.

One night a couple weeks ago, I peaked in on the girls on my way to bed.   Grace’s face looked shiny in the low light so I went over to see why.   I was shocked to see she had smeared Baby Vapor Rub all over her face!   I couldn’t believe she would do this and not complain about the smell or the tingling feeling that goes along with this stuff.   So I sighed, got a washcloth and started wiping off her face, expecting her to wake up and I would then ask her what she was thinking.  She must’ve been in a very deep sleep as she barely stirred through this process.   Her reaction was so minimal  I checked on her a couple of times afterwards to see if she was ok – which of course she was.  Unfortunately, the next morning and the subsequent days after, we forgot about the incident to ask “why”.    Two weeks later though I finally remembered and asked why she slathered herself.   She at first played dumb – I have no idea what you are talking about (smiling and laughing).   So I got the stuff out of the medicine cabinent (yes I had made a point of putting it away after seeing her face!) and asked her again why she had it all over her face.    This time her little imp of a sister started smiling as big as possible and said "I Did It!!!"   

“What?!?!” was my reaction – And Clara explained she put it on Gracie’s face after Grace fell asleep one night.   Both the girls were giggling hard about this – Grace because she didn’t remember the incident at all and I assume Clara due to remembering how much fun she had painting Grace’s face.   She didn’t say why she chose to do this.   But in typical Clara response I am sure the answer would’ve been.  “Because I like to”.   

*Sigh*, it will be a long 18 years with this one....