h&m: 02.07

finally

we got a little bit of snow.

i know these are a bit repetitive, but there are so few of them, i thought i'd try to make up with quantity.

performance

the best part of the Children's Museum was that they had a functional stage (full proscenium arch with some rigging and working curtains, a costume 'shop' with closets full of clothes, a backstage 'dressing room' with lighted mirrors, and a functioning light/sound booth that would produce pre-recorded sound effects, music, and dim various lighting circuits). All the kids there were beside themselves with imagination, and all the parents sat around in a kind of unexpected amazement at the entertainment they dreamed up. It was almost like a sociological case study to watch them form groups and work out cooperative strategies to organize and present these various little dances and skits. Often they would open the curtains for the sole purpose of presenting themselves assembled, all in newly changed costumes, into a crowded tableau. it was living proof of a drama teacher's assertions that theater is a kind of inate humanist necessity, if i can get away with saying something like that.

the light/sound board.

Staten Island Children's Museum

a couple of weeks ago we drove the girls out the Staten Island Children's Museum, which is pretty impressive. we had a long, great afternoon

you can see mette walking around in a fireman's suit (they provide them with full miniature firemen's gear)

driving an old-fashioned firetruck

the museum is organized into several distinct zones - several of them are biospheres (Artic, Tropical, and the Ocean) in which the kids are cast as explorers, complete with more outfits for dressing up. Here we are running sled dogs through the artic. There is a video monitor in front of the sled that shows sled dogs running through the snow, and when the driver steps onto the skids and begins to rock back and forth, the sled and video react for a kind of 'virtual' Iditerod.

Mette pulling herself across the Amazon(?) on a river raft (to fight a fire?)

Hennie in a rainforest hut

Mette suiting up to dive into the ocean

A radio studio

in the artic zone they had this climbing wall, and when hege and i weren't looking hennie jumped up on it and actually doing a really good job of navigating it. I was honestly so proud of her - she wasn't scared and seemed to instinctively understand the sport - she was carefully choosing each hold and mapping out her next move very patiently and logically. when she'd fall, she'd jump back onto the 'mountain' as if she was attacking it.

expert form! she could have played on this thing for an hour. I love these pictures.

we could easily install a mini wall in our basement; i'm thinking about it halfway seriously.

the actual party

we waited for the eilertsens to arrive, (and for us to have time to get a little more done on the house), before actually scheduling hennie's 5th birthday party. it was huge, too. with at least 20 kids in the house. and at least one parent for each; many brought two. so it was unbelievably crowded, but i think we can honestly say that everyone had a great time. hege and i really did.

Yuna and Mia

so many people in her room, climbing on her new bunkbed. (though nobody had any breakdowns, and there were no arguments)

we decorated the basement (though you can't really tell from any of these photos) as if it were "hennie's kingdom". she dressed in her requisite royal finery. After a stressed out push to hide all construction materials & tools, etc. by cramming them underneath the mezzanine and in a corner, behind a construction tarp, we draped red building paper (bought at Home Depot for $8 a roll) from the ceiling joists. To mimic velvet swag I guess. and then hung as many christmas lights as i had time to loop around. i had tried to get a disco ball, but decided not to spend the money. and hege found a pinata (a bull), which we hung from the middle of the room. It felt great down there, vaguely mysterious but energetic, and it kind of kept everybody's spirits up amid the swirling chaos. this is a photo of the kids lining up to hit the pinata with a cane.

the bull is hung

mette's turn

it took a while, but a few of the boys (especially Mia's older brother William) became like primative killers. several of the mothers were actually a little shocked by the cane-swinging, but i think they just let it go for fun. But it did become a blood-sport, with everyone screaming (parents included) and the thing eventually getting ripped into peices. several of the boys continued the party by wearing parts of the animal like trophies (the bulls legs became like warrior armbands - very Incan looking)

again... if not south american, that at least a little marxist.

we ordered a bunch of pizza when people started getting hungry.

here is torild giving her helene a slice. next to her is jaclyn, who is in hennie's pre-K class. these are the new steps to the 'mezzanine', which did their job as bleacher seating.