This Halloween Sean was determined he wanted to be Optimus Prime from Transformers. There was never any other options. We did give in and buy the helmet but the rest was home made. As of two weeks ago his costume consisted of a pile of broken down boxes in the computer work room. The pile had been there for several weeks but I had been unable to figure out how to turn it into Optimus Prime despite Googling the subject to death.

Finally I gave in and made the first cut. After two weeks of cutting, gluing, painting, and a brief encounter with a needle, some fishing line and some elastic the costume to your left was produced. (Click on the photograph for whole gallery.) It had a lot of things I wished were better but Sean loved it. For one afternoon and evening he WAS Optimus Prime!
First we went to the Farmville Downtown Parade where the kids walk up and down Main Street and the retailers and organizations give out candy. Sean got lots and lots of kudos for his costume. There were many exclamations of “It’s Optimus Prime!” “Great Costume!” and “Best Costume of the day!” Sean seemed to get more of a buzz from the attention than the candy.

After the parade we headed home for a while and Sean handed out candy in costume from our front porch. Then we headed out to go trick-or-treating. A quick stop in at Barnes and Noble for some Starbucks sustenance for Mommy and Daddy and we found they were handing out candy so Sean came in with his costume. Then we headed up to High Street.

Last year High Street was teeming with trick-or-treaters and a large number of the residents seemed to be participating. Many of the residents had gone to a lot of trouble decorating their houses and some even provided haunted areas to walk through before a candy reward was distributed. We figured that would be a good place for Sean since it was difficult for him moving around in the costume so we needed a decent size concentration of houses to visit. We started at Leigh and Marcus’ house and then headed down the hill and ended up a good way down before we hit another house taking part in the festivities. Then we walked almost all the way back up before hitting any further houses. Thankfully several houses at that point where accepting trick-or-treaters but by this point the poor wee boy was tired out and the curfew for trick-or-treating was upon us. We offered Sean the idea of removing the leggings so he could walk faster but he was determined to keep the whole thing on.

Thankfully Sean was still getting more fun out of the reaction to his costume than the actual candy collected. He got a lot of attention from the other trick-or-treaters so the lack of houses to visit wasn’t such an issue. The houses we did visit really seemed to enjoy his costume and appreciated seeing a home made effort.

I’m not sure why there was so much less participation this year. There were even yards decorated for Halloween but the occupants of the house were not participating. I know it can get annoying with the attitude of some of the trick-or-treaters** but the majority taking part are well in the spirit and the kids just love Halloween. Lon and I both agreed that we would actually put it in our plus column of a potential residence if it got good trick-or-treat traffic. We fully intend to go all out for the trick-or-treaters who come to us when Sean gets too old to go trick-or-treating.

Anyway, we had an AWESOME Halloween and we had one very happy wee Optimus Prime.

Happy Halloween!!

** To illustrate our understanding of the negative behavior from the trick-or-treaters we had one older girl who came with her family to our house this year. First of all she wasn’t in costume although the younger kids in the family were and second she tried to grab a huge handful of candy from the bowl seriously depleting our stock. Eventually her Mom told her to not be greedy. She walked away with the handful she had managed to grab and looked it over then started muttering about about how she didn’t “… like no lollipops and no fruit-flavor candies.” Then when we took Sean out we left a bowl full of candy for anyone who came by. When we got back we expected the candy to be gone but not the bowl too!

To the relief of Grannies everywhere we got Sean’s haircut. I would ask him occasionally if he wanted a haircut but the answer was always no. Last week we were walking home from the ice cream shop and he was having a hard time eating his ice cream and keeping his hair out of the way. He turned to me and said “I think I want a haircut.” Here are a before and after. The afters were actually taken the next morning before school. Click on either one to see a few more photographs.

Just added a new Gallery from this month’s “First Fridays” event and wanted to share. You may notice Sean’s mouth/face looks swollen on one side. We were playing “Tag” the day before and he took a tumble. His face contacted with the skirting board corner and his tooth must have gone into his cheek a bit. I know it had to hurt because he wanted to take Tylenol (paracetemol brand for the Brits). Usually Sean refuses to touch the stuff even when he feels bad. It’s still a bit swollen but getting better.

I’m sorry it seems like the time between these posts and the Gallery updates are getting longer and longer but life is so full and busy. We are slap bang in the middle of the sweltering Virginia summertime and Sean is enjoying the season of playdates, vacation bible schools, and skint knees.

Since we last met there has been the Heart of Virginia Festival which saw Sean fall in love with “Bouncy Castles.” Any of those big inflatable doo-dads that kids can bounce around on and slide down he absolutely adores.

There have been lots of playdates over the summer with the Mops group which doesn’t meet over the summer. We haven’t been able to attend all but we have been to a few. There was a trip to a new park on May 9th, a trip to Amazement Square in Lynchburg on June 6th and today (July 18th) we went out to someone’s house and the kids all played together mostly in the pool and on the slip and slide. There photos from the first two you can get to by clicking on either of the photographs that follow:

On May 19th we attended a “Camp Out” at Cumberland Presbyterian Church which is a signifcant site on Lee’s Retreat. The Camp Out was held as part of the Jamestown 400 celebrations going on in Virginia. It was of special significance because Sean’s Great, Great, Great Grandfather Frank Penick, who fought in the Civil War, was honored.

On June 9th was the annual Penick Family Reunion - Lon’s Mom’s family. Once again Sean had a great time in the pool but we have a lot of work to do getting him comfortable in the water and ultimately swimming.

That brings us up to 4th of July and we attended the Town’s annual Fireworks After Dark event on the evening of July 3rd. There were more bouncy doo-dads so that combined with fireworks and lots of his friends made for a spectacularly fabulous night for Sean.

In other news there have been several cinema visits to see Shrek, Spiderman III and after a long wait on Sean’s part he finally got to see Transformers. It was so good Sean went back to see it a second time with Daddy and Marcus. The wee boy has been waiting with great anticipation for the Transformers movie since he saw the first trailer! In fact, everyone who visited us had to go into Daddy’s office and be shown the trailer on Daddy’s computer. There was our usually yearly party for Lon’s birthday. It was a more subdued affair than usual this year but still lots of fun. Sean has attended two Bible Schools at local churches to be duly indoctrinated He had a lot of fun but Daddy is kind of perturbed at the science lesson which involved discussing Abraham and Sarah having binoculars just under 3 Millennia before they were invented! We have had one family reunion so far and another is coming up at the beginning of August.

Hopefully that will do for now and below a few more links to galleries of random photographs taken in this time frame. Particularly funny is the most recent of Sean playing Spider Solitaire. If we were to take a picture of Granny Pat on a Sunday talking to Mummy on the phone it would be a very similar photograph

Added a few more galleries… Of particular note is the gallery accessed if you click on the pic of Sean holding up his foot for the camera. Sean LOVES Gorillaz and in particular he loves the song “Dare.” The videos are clips of Sean dancing along while watching the Gorillaz concert on tv. He particularly likes the part where Shaun Ryder yells “It’s Dare!”

There is a set of photographs from the church Easter Egg Hunt we went to last Saturday, March 7th. Funnier was the Hunt we went to the following Tuesday. It was put on by the local radio station with lots prizes for the kids. Sean only got 4 eggs and there were 1000s. After they gave out the prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd largest number of eggs found it was asked who picked up the least. They actually started the “bidding” at 5 so I held up 4 fingers. The person on the mike knew us so he asked me if Sean only got 4 which I confirmed. Turns out there was a prize for the least number of eggs found. It was $50 savings bond. It didn’t mean much to Sean but we thought that was pretty cool!

Sean had a lot of fun the week before Easter as Jennifer was off school and came to work with her Mom each day. I don’t think it was so much fun for Jennifer running around after Sean all week. Sherry said she would treat Jennifer with a trip to the cinema. We had intended to take Sean to see “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” so I asked if Jenn had indicated wanting to see it. She did so Lon and I took her and Sean to see it Easter Sunday night. It wasn’t too painful to sit through as an adult although I wouldn’t have gone to see it if not for Sean. There will probably be a few cinema trips over the next few months with Spiderman 3, Transformers and Shrek 3 all scheduled for release. Shrek 2 was Sean’s first cinema trip outside the womb. Funnily enough, if you count in-utero, Spiderman 1 was his first. I guess we’ll have to skip Grindhouse for a few years yet … although it would interesting just to see the furore we could spread in town if we were to be seen taking him to it

That’s all for now!

MJx

I added a few video clips to the March 10th Gallery. Sean dancing to his Fergi CD Enjoy!

Sean is going through yet another growth spurt. It seems like everyday he gets more and more grown-up looking. His imagination is firing on all cylinders and right now it is all about robots. He constructs robot armies with his lego putting a lot of thought and consideration into their design. Then he can tell you all about them in great detail. It’s a lot of fun!

One thing we have learned about Sean’s development is not to worry when he won’t do something. It was true for potty training and the same pattern keeps recurring. The most recent example was his lack of interest in drawing. A lot of kids his age seems to love drawing and I began to wonder that he showed no interest. I would give him paper and crayons and coloring books but he rarely wanted to use them. Then about 2 weeks ago he just took off on a drawing kick. One of the galleries below shows a picture he drew of his Paw Richard.

Here are some photographs and movies from the first quarter of 2007:

I did intend to post much sooner. Life just keeps getting in the way these days!

Christmas was lots of fun and Santa did manage to deliver 3 blue bears and 4 pink clocks. Check out the Christmas Day gallery for more details. Sean was amazingly patient waiting for Daddy to wake up. He sat happily watching tv until Daddy was awake and then we proceeded downstairs to see if Santa had visited. Sean was amazed to find so many wonderful delights surrounding the fireplace. There were the aforementioned bears and clocks, Teen Titans toys, Ben 10 toys, a Civil War soldier set, a Play-Doh activity table, Jenga, Uno, a Fergie CD, a tool bag, jigsaw puzzles, Zebra cakes, candy, Fritos, robots, and Lilo. Sean wanted to know when Santa would be returning!

Below are links to the remaining galleries for 2006 from Sean’s birthday to the end of the year.

Enjoy!

Well December was a very eventful month. So busy there were no journal entries To sum it up we started with Sean telling Santa that he wants three blue bears and four pink clocks for Christmas. That was his story and he took it all the way to Christmas Day. Did Santa deliver? You’ll have to wait and see.

The first week and a bit of December was occupied with the Pantomime at the local theater. Pantomime is a big tradition in UK theaters over the Christmas season and I’ve added at the bottom of this post an article I wrote for the local newspapers to introduce the American audience to Pantomime. To start off the publicity the cast and members of the theater board took part in the Farmville Christmas Parade. Since I am on the board, Sean and I took part and gave out candy. Sean had a blast! He thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Sean then enjoyed the rest of the week hanging out at the theater as we got ready for the performances and he watched rehearsals. He then saw the final show a few times and loved it!

Next big event was Sean’s fourth birthday on December 17th. Since the actual day of his birthday was a Sunday we had dinner at Merk’s Place the night before. Granny Margaret and Pa were there along with Bill and Sherry and Sean’s friend Matt and his Daddy. This year the Merkles made a Teen Titans birthday cake for Sean.

From that point we headed into the thick of Christmas but I’ll tackle that in another posting. For now we have some photograph galleries to go along with these events.

Waterworks Brings UK Christmas Tradition to Life

Article by Mary Jo Stockton

In the UK, the pantomime tradition is as much a part of Christmas as the trees, presents, flashing lights, overeating and viewing of “It’s a Wonderful Life!” I remember every Christmas as a child there would be one night we would get dressed up and head to the theater for a night of love, laughter, fantasy, and candy. If you were really lucky, you got to attend more than one in a season. In one spectacular year I attended three different pantomimes: one with my family, one with the school, and one with my Girl Guide (UK version of Girl Scouts) troop.

Just as the decorations and jingly music start to fill the stores, almost every theater in Britain starts to put up posters advertising this year’s pantomime. In the big theaters, there will be stars. Usually it is soap stars, comedians, and recording artists. As the theater in question grows smaller the stars move from B-list to D-list until you get to the community theaters where the shows are populated by the usual lineup of enthusiastic locals. The story is always some variation on a popular fairy tale or nursery rhyme. Some of the edgier theaters have tried to drag pantomime into the 21st century, but it’s an old, old tradition and we Brits like our traditions traditional.

Pantomimes are aimed at children although there is usually enough entertainment to be enjoyable for the adults who have to take their kids every year. Like a good Disney movie, good pantomimes have mastered the art of appealing to both young and old. The most popular shows are based on stories like Cinderella, Aladdin, Puss In Boots, Jack and the Beanstalk, Mother Goose, and Babes in the Wood (Hansel & Gretel). There is a lot of audience interaction and the kids love it. When the children really get into it, the atmosphere is electric as they play along with the events on stage rooting for the Hero and boo-ing the Villain, and that takes us nicely into some of the tradition of pantomime.

I remember often being hoarse having yelled so hard at the stage during a show. This will sound familiar to any fans of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. There are certain happenings within the show that should elicit a well-known response from the audience. Very few kids in the UK don’t know that to do when the Villain comes sneaking up behind our Hero! You need to yell “He/She’s behind you!!!” at the top of your lungs. The Hero will glance around (but too slowly) as the Villain jumps behind a nearby tree. Our Hero looks back quizzically at the audience wondering why they were yelling. The Villain will resume his sneaking and once again the audience will yell wildly. This repeats until the Villain reaches his goal or is thwarted as the Hero is finally fast enough to catch him or her. Some other traditional audience interaction involves arguments between the audience and the characters exchanging the words “Oh yes it is!” and “Oh no it isn’t!” and the traditional boo-ing of the bad guy when he or she comes on stage. The audience members are as much a part of this show as the cast on stage.

Pantomime is a wonderful way to bring young children into the world of theater and build an appreciation for an art form that may stay with them in the future. I believe the magic I saw on stage attending Pantomimes grew into an adult love of musicals on stage. Watching a Pantomime, I was there taking part in the story and lost in its magic. The Hero actually needed my help to be victorious and defeat the Villain and I actually believed we could all together defeat the bad guys. Nowadays watching a musical, I can become totally lost in the magic woven on a stage. The last musical I saw on stage was Miss Saigon and I was so lost in the performance I needed a handful of tissues by the end. Pantomimes taught me to give myself over fully to the magic of the theater.

Make reservations now for the whole family to attend Waterworks Players’ production of Puss in Boots. Performances are Saturday and Sunday, December 9 and 10, 2006 at 2 pm and 5 pm. Tickets are $5 for everyone, children and adults. For more information or to reserve tickets, leave a message at 434.392.3452 including your name, telephone number, the date of the show you’d like to see, and the number of tickets you need. Tickets can also be ordered at http://www.waterworksplayers.org.

On Friday morning we had something more deadly in the air that didn’t smell… carbon monoxide. Over Thanksgiving it rained filling the hole in the basement that was being created due the excavation of the kerosene soaked dirt. The workers used a gas pump to clear the water but they brought it INTO the basement and fired it up. There was smoke and a bad smell in the house but then the carbon monoxide detector started alarming. First, I grabbed Sean and got him outside as quickly as possibly. He obviously sensed this was important and did everything I asked without complaint. I asked him to please stay in the bench outside the door while I woke Daddy and he didn’t move an inch while I was gone. After waking Lon and getting him moving I checked the monitor and it was registering around 180 ppm!

Thankfully, everyone was fine other than some slight discomfort and lingering headaches.

Otherwise everything is going well. The clean up after the oil spill is still ongoing. Thanksgiving was very nice and we stuffed ourselves as tradition requires. Over the weekend our friends Leigh and Marcus held a Thanksgiving leftover party which was a lot of fun but not so much for Sean. The food was good with everyone contributing leftovers from their various Thanksgiving feasts. There was a bit too much of that “adult-talk stuff” for Sean but we brought a Teen Titans DVD which kept him happy.

Sean is much more aware of Christmas and his upcoming birthday this year. He gets very excited seeing the Christmas decorations and is figuring out what to tell Santa next Saturday at Breakfast with Santa. Next Sunday we will be participating in the Christmas Parade so that should add to his excitement level.

I really need to do a better job in recording his funny comments. There is a wealth of them at the moment and it will be fun to look back at them in the future. They will also provide an excellent form of torture when he gets to his teenage years and even better when he starts bringing around possible love interests! The only one I can recall right now was a few weeks ago. He had just done a particularly large and potent “stinky” and called me in for clean up duty. I walked in to the toilet amazed at the smell and the size and exclaimed “Where did all that come from?” He looked at me quizzically with his head cocked to the side and said “Just from my butt Mommy, ” and then nodded his head to indicate how sure he was of his statement

More “Seanisms” to come I’m sure. For now here are some pics to and as per usual click on the pic to see more from that gallery.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!