The Jesus Pirates

Proof that religious education may be somewhat lost on kindergarteners. I thought the skull and crossbones was an especially nice touch.

The Owen Show

Several readers have inquired as to how my big trombone performance at the kindergarten class went last month, so I am updating you all.

Keep in mind that while my blog entry was about me, I was not the only act on the bill that day. In fact, if there were a concert poster made up for the event, it would have gone something like this:

"OWENFEST '09!!!
Opening Acts:
"Owen's Twin Bros." - Living, Breathing Show and Tell Items
"Star Wars medley" - played by Owen's Daddy on Trombone, followed by short Q & A
"Watch Out for Jabba the Hutt" - a dramatic reading of Owen's favorite book by Owen's Daddy

Headliner:

"Flags!" - an educational presentation by Owen, the Star of the Week"

So, first we introduced the twins, who proved to be an exceptional warm up act. I suppose for extra effect, we could have told the class that we had octuplets and only had room for two in the van, as kindergartners are notoriously gullible. But really, two is enough. Twins make people smile, especially when they are being cute and not either whining or wreaking havoc and destruction.

Next, I broke out the trombone. No chance to warm up as there was no "green room" and I was self-conscious about noise as a lone trombone blaring out through the relatively quiet grade school was sure to garner more attention than I wanted. So, I dived right in. The song went well, with the exception of one clinker high note early on which caused an audible cringe from the crowd. The kids asked me a lot of questions afterwards and Owen told Deanna later that a lot of the kids thought he had a cool dad. So, having earned the adulation of such a discerning crowd, what more could I really ask for. No encore was demanded, by the way.

Next up, I read the class Owen's "favorite" book, "Watch Out for Jabba the Hutt!" which proved to be more violent than I recalled, so I ended up skipping a lot of pages when I saw teacher Mindy sort of grimacing at me. You know you are not reading a classic when you can skip approximately every other page and not have anyone lose the narrative thread (such as it is) or care. The class was not enthralled.

Last, Owen did a little presentation on flags using his extensive collection of miniature flags as props. While devoted readers of CloudEight are familiar with his love of flags, his peers were not. I like to think he wowed them with his ability to identify the flags of obscure countries like Trinidad and Tobago, but who really knows what impresses the kindergarten set. I can say that he was poised and we, his parents, were duly impressed and proud.

In case you are wondering where Deanna was during all this, she was "on twins" after their portion of the show - i.e. keeping them from grabbing the slide of my trombone while I was playing, etc. A difficult job, to be sure. It was actually a bit of a trick prying the twins out of there as they were rather enthralled with being in school at long last. Hayden in particular attempted to dash into several other classrooms on our way out, but we managed to corral him in time.

And that, dear readers, was the extent of the Owen Show. DVD's of the show and my reading of "Watch Out for Jabba the Hutt!!" in audio book format are of course available for download in the "ShopCloudEight!" portion of this blog. Buy both together and receive a discount.

Paddy O'Daddy

Another St. Patrick's Day is in the books. Aside from guzzling Shamrock Shakes and amusing myself by speaking in an Irish brogue and making the kids refer to me as "Paddy O'Daddy" and "Da", not too much celebratin' took place. Deanna and I hope to rectify that in the near future with a kid-free jaunt to New Orleans, where we will celebrate being in New Orleans without kids.

Another birthday in the books recently for me as well. From the things that make me feel old file:

1. I recently had to ask the bartender at a Wicker Park bar what the kids are drinking with the Red Bull these days. Vodka, as it turns out. Still, I guess I should get some style points for being in a Wicker Park bar at all, even if I needed Red Bull to stay out past 10.

2. The twins like to run their hands over my unshaven weekend face and say "rrrrooouuugh!" Then, to reinforce their point, they run their hands over my bald head and say "smooooooove."

Owen-Wan Kenobi's Last Home Birthday Party

Every other family in town sagely seems to host 6th birthday parties at an indoor playground, pool, gymnasium, etc. We, however, for the second year in a row, let Owen talk us into hosting his birthday party at our house. We are apparently slow learners.

As soon as we consented to Owen's request for a Star Wars themed party at our place, he began suggesting that we decorate each room of the house as a different planet in the Star Wars galaxy, including an ambitious request to turn the living room into the lava-covered planet from Episode III, and the dining room into the ice planet of Hoth from the Empire Strikes Back. Yikes!

We eventually scaled back his plans to something workable, and worked out a guest list of seven of his little friends. An expensive but fun trip to the party megastore followed, along with some long days of agonizing over a cake design by Deanna (the final decision: an unappetizing looking but tasty Jabba the Hutt, using, amusingly, an Easter lamb cake mold as its base foundation), and research regarding Star Wars party games by me. Finally, after some serious night-before decorating, we were ready to rock.

Entertaining eight six-year-olds for two hours is not a pleasant task under any circumstances. Still, despite dreading it for days, I think Deanna and I can both agree that it was actually worse than we imagined. While things generally hung together for the first five minutes or so, the situation started to deteriorate when they spread out to multiple floors, despite our best efforts to corral them. Then, at the outset of the first game, one kid, who we didn't much know and who seemed a bit out-of-sync with the others, simply disappeared. Once Deanna reported to me that she couldn't find him, we took turns quietly scouring the house for him while the other gamely attempted to hold the rest of the group's attention. Increasingly desperate, we learned later that we had both independently gone out to the mudroom and counted the kids shoes and coats - all there. Finally, convinced that he must have left I began searching outside, stunned that we could lose one of our eight charges just 10 minutes into the party. Deanna was just looking up his mom's number to call and say we couldn't find him - not a pleasant call to make - when she saw a shadow move behind a chair. The little bastard actually smirked as he acknowledged to Deanna that yes, he had heard us all calling for him - just didn't feel like coming out.

While the rest of the party was fairly unpleasant as well - fist fight, verbal altercations, crying, running out of games after the first hour - it all actually seemed delightful compared to our panic of thinking we had lost one of our guests.

While we may have had a tough go of it, the kids all actually seemed to have a blast, including making a giant space-themed mural, which, amusingly, including poorly spelled versions of risque six-year old terms like "fartsicle" and "poopy-head." The highlight for me was some Jedi-sensory training that consisted of having the kids stick their hands into cups to feel various things they couldn't see and then telling them they were gross things like "Darth Maul's eyeballs" (mandarin oranges) and "Bantha guts" (spaghetti). I knew this was a success when one of the kids told me later, upon finding out it had been mandarin oranges and not eyeballs, that he had been wondering how we gotten our hands on Darth Maul's eyeballs.

I will leave you with this photo of Deanna, attempting, to no avail, to summon Obi-Wan to help us watch the kids.