Here’s a short clip of Evie’s performance from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Prepare to die from cuteness:
Year: 2014
3 Performances
The kids have recently treated us to 3 fairly major performances:
- Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer – Evie recently completed a second year of “acting camp”. This year the play was, inexplicably, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Nothing says summer camp like Santa Claus! Last year, Evie auditioned with “Little Girls” and got Ursula the Sea Witch. This year, she performed “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” and got Hermey, the elf who wants to be a dentist.
She killed it, in typical Evie fashion. As with last year, she nailed all of her lines with feeling, and mouthed everyone else’s lines. She also got more “points” for the week than anybody else at summer camp. I’ll tell you one thing: after carpooling three kids to this camp all week, I’m happy for the break from listening to “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” and “We are Santa’s Elves”. - Vacation Bible School – In the meantime, Ollie was off at vacation bible school, which culminated in a performance of various songs in church on Sunday. Ollie is not traditionally the “performer” in the family (see above), and I was very curious about how he’d do at such a thing without his sister around (though we did basically know every kid that was there). He did a pretty good job. He didn’t sing, per say, but he was obviously trying very hard with the motions and everything. I’m not sure he even noticed he was up in front of a crowd.
- Evie’s Birthday Performance – But the very best performance of all was Evie’s birthday performance. Evie wanted to have some kind of performance to put on during her family birthday party, so she wrote and directed something for her and Oliver. There were original songs, vaudevillian routines, and lots and lots of jumping on the bed. The kids took it very seriously, and practiced for weeks. Evie even put colored tape “marks” on the bed for them to hit during the show. The whole thing went off without a hitch, and I was so proud of them for doing such a good job all on their own. My favorite part is when Ollie sings, “Happy birthday to you!” and Evie says, “Who me?” and Ollie replies, “Yes you!” The birth of a comedy duo.
In which I almost have a psychotic break
So, I was at work the other day, when I noticed my vision was going a little blurry. Not blurry exactly…just kind of like if you looked at the sun for a long time and then looked at something else. Like there was a ghost spot over the center of my vision. I didn’t think much of it, and tried to blink it away.
Over the next 10 minutes or so, it got increasingly worse. A large, blurry crescent shape developed in my right peripheral vision. It was very odd. If I looked in that direction it would move or disappear, but if I looked straight ahead it was as if there were a giant kaleidoscope covering everything to my right. I could sort of see shapes and colors through it, but it was like looking through thick glass or something.
At this point I started to freak out a little bit. I had no idea what was going on; it was like nothing I have ever experienced. I decided that something was wrong with my eye, most likely that my cornea was becoming detached.
Now, there’s two things you have to know about me. The first is that eye things REALLY FREAK ME OUT. Sara used to chase me around touching her eyeball, just to squick me out. Even typing this now makes my eyes water like crazy. The thought of my cornea detaching (::shudder::) literally makes sick to my stomach.
Second is that I’m more of a “rub some dirt on it!” kind of a guy, and absolutely not a “going to the doctor” kind of guy. I don’t know why exactly. It’s not like I’ve had some bad experience or something. But in any case, it’s got to be like bones-sticking-out-of-the-skin for me to go to the hospital (and even then…)
I only say this to try to explain my mental state. On one hand, I was absolutely sure that the worst possible thing was happening to me. On the other hand, well we don’t need all that fuss of like calling an eye doctor or anything, do we? It’ll be fine! Can’t we just, I don’t know, make an eye patch out of paper and masking tape or something?
So as I sat, agonizing in silence, I was rubbing my eyes like crazy and trying to blink the problem away. The shimmering crescent had expanded to the point that it had completely swallowed the peripheral vision on my right side. I completely couldn’t see. I tried covering first one eye and then the other, but it seemed like the crescent was there no matter which eye I covered up.
Based on this hard science, I deduced that either:
- Both of my corneas were falling off,
- I had developed a brain tumor, or
- I was experiencing a psychotic break
I kept thinking, “Have I been stressed out? Is this somehow stress related?”
At this point I decided that I had better go home. By the time I got out to the car, my vision was more or less returned. Even still, I called Sara to explain what was going on just in case I blacked out or totally lost my vision while driving. I was really freaked out and didn’t know if something was really, really wrong.
Well, I guess not, because it never returned. All that night and the next day, I was fine.
I was still a bit worried about it though, so I googled it. Apparently it’s pretty common, since I was immediately able to find lots of people describing exactly what I experienced, right down to the floating kaleidoscope crescent. It was so weird to read someone (many someones) describing exactly what I had experienced as though they were inside my head. It was just so specific.
Apparently it is an “ophthalmic migraine” which is harmless if you don’t get the actual headache afterwards.
When it is large, this crescent shaped blind spot containing this brightly flashing light can be difficult to ignore, and some people fear that they are having a stroke. In reality, it is generally a harmless phenomenon, except in people who subsequently get the headache of migraine. Since migraine originates in the brain, the visual effect typically involves the same side of vision in each eye, although it may seem more prominent in one eye or the other. Some people get different variations of this phenomenon, with the central vision being involved, or with the visual effect similar to “heat rising off of a car”. Some people describe a “kaleidoscope” effect, with pieces of the vision being missing. All of these variations are consistent with ophthalmic migraine.
So yeah, no big deal I guess? Having the vision center in your brain randomly malfunction doesn’t really seem like a “no big deal” kind of thing, but I guess it certainly sounds better than a brain tumor or my corneas falling off!
Quote Monday learns about how the body works
Ollie: “Every minute, every second, too much spit gets in my mouth and I have to swallow it down. That’s how MY body works.”
Ollie: “Evie is dill.”
Me: “What?”
Ollie: “Evie is dill, so she’s too weak to stand and she’s going to die.”
Me: “Dill?”
Ollie: “Yeah. Really sick.”
::We went out in to the storage area::
Evie: “It smells good out here!”
Me: “Really??”
Evie: “I would like to eat whatever this smells like.”
I guess she would like to eat some musty, dusty antiques, because that’s what it smelled like. Or maybe not, because later:
Evie: “It smells like the rotten potatoes. But I would still like to eat it.”
Oliver and the Tarantula
“There’s a tarantula under my bed,” said Oliver.
“Buddy, we don’t have any tarantulas here. It’s too cold for them.”
“No it’s not,” he said. “They’re on the stairs, too.”
Oliver and I had been having this conversation for a long time. He insists every spider that he sees is a tarantula. I don’t know where he first heard about tarantulas – school maybe? – but he considers himself an expert and will hear no evidence that contradicts his vast knowledge of arachnids.
It’s kind of amazing how much this tarantula thing has captured his imagination. Why tarantulas? Nobody knows.
“Oliver, what’s this tray doing here?”
“That’s for fighting the tarantula that lives under my bed.”
He had literally stocked his bed with weaponry. I imagined him huddled up on the bed, afraid to let his toes dangle, ready to smoosh any tarantula that dared to show so much as a leg. It was kind of funny in that “all kids go through something like this” way, but I was also starting to worry that perhaps he was dwelling on tarantulas a little too much. I didn’t really want him afraid to spend time in his bedroom.
“Mama, come quick!” shouted Oliver one day during his relaxing time. “The tarantula is on the floor!” Sara came sauntering into the room. “Oh!” she said, encountering an ENORMOUS SPIDER. “Oh.”
Now, it wasn’t mythical proportions or anything, but it was just under. Somewhere between the size of a quarter and a half-dollar. We’re not talking about a little Daddy Longlegs here. It was probably about as close to a tarantula as you are likely to see in Chicago.
Sara grabbed a book and smashed it. “I already did that!” shouted Oliver, but he had apparently only stunned the beast. Later he told me, “I could see it under my bed, so I kept blowing on it to make it move until it came out.” Sara went to get some toilet paper to dispose of it, but Oliver just picked it up by the legs and disposed of it.
So there WAS a tarantula under his bed (kind of)! And he wasn’t frighted of it, merely being practical. Remind me never to doubt him about something like this again.
Except now he says there’s another one under his bed.
Shane Halbach 