My feelings have been made

This morning I had a brief conversation with Helena regarding blowing her nose properly, and she walked away with her shoulders stooped over and her head dropped onto her chest. Being a super-intuitive interpreter of body language, I asked her what was wrong. She turned around and, through tears, wailed, "you made my feelings!"

 Harper just came and told me she was really excited to do some "word troubles" in her math lesson today. By which she actually meant word problems. Here's to hoping they are neither troublesome or problematic.

Hudson expressed a bit of noisy flatulence at a free performance of "A Year With Frog and Toad" we attended on Thursday, and the men sitting behind us began giggling uncontrollably. When it was over, the older man said,"That made me feel right at home," and I replied that obviously, Hudson felt the same way. The cast of "Frog and Toad" was comprised of middle and high school students attending a music camp. What they lacked in actual singing/dancing/acting ability was more than made up for with their enthusiasm. My favorite moment was when the adorable teenaged girl playing the part of the Snail charged with delivering Frog's letter to Toad totally forgot one of the little songs she was supposed to sing while inching across the stage, and she started singing, full-voiced and exuberant, to a melody not at all intended by the composer: "Something! Something! I've completely FORGOTTEN! the Words! Just keep SINGING!"  It was a riot, and you know, she will remember that moment with plucky delight when she is old and gray, whereas a lyrically sound performance would probably fade from her memory. It's interesting that while I was typing this, I was watching last night's Olympics at the exact moment sweet Jordyn Weiber's face crumpled when she realized she wouldn't be competing for an individual gold medal. I wish she could watch that turtle girl sing her jubilant, imperfect song.

Now I'm watching Bela Karolyi in his best Indignant Mode. I simply love everything about that crazy Hungarian. (yes, he technically lived in Romania, but he's from the region that used to be part of Hungary. Triannon  is like a curse word in Hungary. Look it up. It's fascinating.)

Today we were watching synchronized diving and, naturally, Harper is highly confident that she could do a reverse four and a half tuck with only a very tiny splash after just a day or two of practice in our neighborhood pool, which has a maximum depth of 5 feet.

Speaking of Bela, I was a little younger than Harper when I was inspired by Nadia Commaneci and began taking gymnastics. Harper has been similarly inspired.

Well done Procter and Gamble with the mom angle on all your Olympics commercials. I saw the first one a couple of months ago and, this will shock everyone, it made me weep. I also, and this will shock everyone, cried several times during the opening ceremonies. Then something weird would happen and I would pull myself together. Because socialized medicine is kind of sad, but not in the way that makes me cry. Then those unbelievable rings of fire=a little crying.  Then Mr. Bean and I am okay. Then thinking about "The King's Speech" and how that was the current queen's father, and wondering if she was thinking of him when she made her little speech, and I teared up a little. Then "Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah" for so infinitely long that I forget what year this even is because I just want them all to sing something remotely OLYMPIC, and I'm all done crying for the night. Although, I also, and this one is just flat-out weird, cried while listening to NPR on Saturday while I was running some errands. There was an interview with the guy who is in charge of all the sound engineering at the Olympics. That's right. SOUND ENGINEERING. And I started crying. Here's why: this guy is so good at what he does (you can watch and HEAR the SOUND of an arrow slicing through the air in the archery events! An arrow! I can hear it all the way from LONDON!) and he finds such clear delight in being excellent in his chosen vocation. AND he's getting this recognition (and probably a nice paycheck) for being excellent at something super cool that he loves to do. That is beautiful to me.

That will be all. I'm attending a 3 day parent practicum for our homeschool co-op this week and I need to be awake for the Latin sentence I've been warned I'll be constructing in the morning.