Week in review: Culture Club!

The husband had to work Saturday morning, which meant the respite I usually look forward to was naught, so I loaded all of us into the car because there was Excessive Whining and fervent requests for lolling on the couch in front of the television. And yes, that is describing my own personal behavior. We ended up at the Arboretum, where another mother told Hudson that "dirt is not for hitting! Baseballs are for hitting!" in the sand pit part of the play area. Instead of yelling at her (which I REALLY wanted to do) "REALLY?? Did you REALLY just tell a little boy that it is not okay to hit dirt with a stick?? WHY? WHY is that not okay?" I glared a little (behind my sunglasses) and steered him toward the ropes course because yes, Hudson, these ropes ARE for climbing:Then we all took a hike. Then Helena started crying about 10 minutes in, so I put her on my shoulders, which made her shriek as though I was doing some horrible, horrible thing, so I got her down (after she almost gauged my eyes out while wildly trying to find something to hold on to from the Horrific Height to which she had been thrust) and tried to get to the bottom of this new terror. She could not talk about it. She could, however, continue to cry about it for the next 30 minutes while we got lost in the forest and the temperatures soared to 96 degrees. So. This is just before the Great Trauma:Here is Harper on the rope bridge. I bought that outfit as a stay-at-home play clothes choice because it was super cheap, and of course, she loves it and would like to wear it every day. The knee socks with the peace signs came in a package of socks, and she calls the peace signs "wagon wheels" which is cute. I never think she looks like me, but in this hippie getup, with her wild hippie hair, I see a little of me circa 1978 in this one:

Monday:
We joined the Rives familia for "The Velveteen Rabbit" at the Miller Outdoor Theater. It was free. It was opera. There was a nice breeze under the shaded amphitheater. There was a grown man dressed up as a bunny. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Tuesday:
We stayed home. I cleaned vomit off Hudson's rugs.

Wednesday:
Rode the Herman Park train with the Swanks. Went to see "The Velveteen Rabbit" AGAIN. Because I am a sucker for free culture. I gave the kids the option to do something else, and they chose to see it again. During this performance, the Velveteen Rabbit cried real tears during the song when the boy is so sick and needs him, even though the Velveteen Rabbit knows if he goes to the boy, he'll be tainted with the scarlet fever germs and have to be destroyed. It was very touching. It could also be that the tenor in the bunny suit was crying because his body was ON FIRE inside a bunny suit when it was 95 degrees outside.

Thursday:
Went to a FREE performance (it was homeschool day) by apprentice students in the Houston Ballet. The dancers, all of whom are training to dance professionally, were breathtakingly talented. They performed seven dances from around the world, so we got a little geography along with our fine arts. Helena, never having seen boys in tights before, asked, rather loudly and clearly SEVERAL times, "That his BOTTOM? That his BOTTOM?"

Friday:
We had our school day, came home for naps, then met our friend Helena (she is, by default, referred to as Big Helena, which we will certainly need to rethink at some point) and her mom for some play time at the park. Then we met the Daddy at Escalante's for dinner.

Mrs. S and I just had a talk about how amazing it is to live in a big city where there are so many opportunities to do things like go to kid-friendly and FREE opera and ballet performances in the middle of the week. I'm thankful.