I’m not usually inclined to tell the Internet where our family is going more than 2 hours before we get there.  I suppose it’s to maintain some semblance of privacy in this ridiculously open-book life I’ve orchestrated for my family.  However, exceptions must be made, proportionate to an event’s potential for awesome. ^[1]

In that spirit, I’d like to announce that tomorrow we’ll be at the Meltdown Family Music & Book Fest.

The fact that I’m giving twenty-something hours notice for this, instead of the usual two, indicates that this event will be roughly 10 TIMES as rad as the places and events we normally go to.  According to my numbers, anyway.  You really should consult the flyer and do your own math.

If you’re located somewhere within a loosely-defined “driving distance” to western Mass., you should come hang out.

^[1] That’d be “awesomeness” for the grammar hounds, but I much prefer to treat “awesome” like a noun.  I’ve long thought that adding -ness to an adjective undermines its power and/or usefulness.

Halloween is a big deal for the Graves family.  Spookiness.  Pumpkins.  Costumes.  Candy.  What’s not to love?

To answer my own question, Halloween in Manch is not to love.  Parts of it, anyway.

The bad:

We will probably never trick-or-treat in Manchester.  Why?  For one thing, it’s never on Halloween.  For another, it always takes place on a Sunday afternoon…from 1:00 to 4:00 PM.  Never mind the fact that it’s football season—who wants to trick-or-treat in broad daylight?

Not us.

Every year, we defect and go with my sister’s family.  On Halloween.  At dusk.  In a town that really gets into the holiday.

The good:

I may be a little bit biased, but the library’s annual Halloween party is loads of fun.  It’s easily the highlight of the year for our department.  A costume parade and a hired performer may not sound like much, but it makes both kids and parents very happy.

The Children’s Services staff at the party:

This year our performer was magician Andrew Pinard.  His magic won’t drop your jaw, but his on-stage charisma kept everyone engaged and entertained.  Rhys especially loved it.  She was laughing out loud (emphasis on loud) during the whole performance, and had to be warned several times about containing herself.

There were cookies and juice (100%! in boxes!) at the after party.  The girls each saw one of their school friends there, and Rhys became pals with a cute little mermaid, too.

The Graves girls as baby jaguar and a candy corn witch:

The summary:

The annual MCL Halloween party pretty much balances out the disappointment over the trick-or-treating day and time.  And, as mentioned above, there are always other towns.

Click to view the rest of our Manchester City Library Halloween party photos.

I’m bummed that we did’t make it to the Deedle Deedle Dees show this afternoon.  We’ve heard good things.  But.  Since Nate and I both work full-time, we have to push some of the girls’ extracurricular activities (read: gymnastics) to Sundays, which means missing out on No Nap Happy Hours for the time being.  But I figure, since I never wrote show reports for the first two, I could spend part of the day reliving them.

First, some insight on the series in general, in case you’ve been on the fence about making the trip.  The Iron Horse is an awesome venue.  It makes you feel like you’re at a show you might have gone to before breeding.  The lighting is just dim enough, and, hell, there’s a bar.  That’s what’s missing from most kids’ shows:  decent beer.  Or beer in general.  Plus, the shows aren’t at in the morning.  Sorry, but there’s nothing rock and roll about 11am.

Rhys took kind of an artsy photo of the place:

We made one big mistake when heading to the Lunch Money show on July 26th:  not bringing food in the car.  On a two-hour ride.  What were we thinking?!  Geraldine held up fine, but Rhys was cranky and whiny (which is how I get when I haven’t eaten…just ask Nate…so I had plenty of empathy for her).  By the time we got the food we had broken down and ordered, the show was over.  But that’s okay, because it gave us plenty of time to, as Rhys puts it, “say hi to that [guy/girl].”

One cool thing about the shows was that the dance floor was self-regulating.  Just push ’em out there and they’ll be fine.  Although I did intervene when they played “Dizzy.”  There wasn’t nearly enough spinning going on!  And I spent a decent amount of effort keeping Rhys occupied during the latter half of the show.  During “Tiny Dinosaurs” I tried getting her to roar; what happened was, I roared, and she buried her head in my shoulder.  But after we ate, we had this conversation:

Rhys:  Next time, can I roar?

Me:  Well, I think next time we come here, it’s going to be a different band.

Rhys:  But, next time in the car, can I roar?

Me:  Aw.  Of course.

I broke in my new camera by recording “A Cookie as Big as My Head”:

[Watch it on YouTube]

Nate and I enjoyed the show as much as the girls did.  His first comment afterward was, “So, are we coming back next month?

So we did go back for the Justin Roberts show on August 23rd.  This is the part where I admit that I wasn’t a huge fan before the show.  It’s just…he’s so established. ^[1]  And maybe something about timbre that I shouldn’t be childish enough to admit to.  But, hey, we own two of his albums…so we started listening to them about a week before the show, and a few of the songs emerged as early favorites (although rhyming “chalkboard” with “awkward” was a major cringe factor for Nate).

The show was awesome.  You’ve got to hand it to the guy:  the place was packed.  At first I thought they oversold it, but we found a small unoccupied booth up on the loft.  And that was fortuitous, because it turns out the best place to shoot a video is from the top of the stairs.

I have yet to get tired of watching this video of “Yellow Bus”:

[Watch it on YouTube]

We now count ourselves among the legion of Justin Roberts fans.  As testament to this, our family collectively had “My Brother Did It” stuck in our heads for a week.  Someone would start humming/singing “dididididit,” and it would get the rest of us singing/humming it.  Crap, now it’s in my head again.

So, that’s me vouching for the No Nap Happy Hour series.  I would also advocate for a trip to Herrell’s Ice Cream after.  So worth it.  Props to Bill Childs of Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child fame for putting the series together.  If you’re a New Englander, take advantage of your chance to see Uncle Rock (10/18), Brady Rymer (11/8), and Bill Harley (12/6).  Maybe we’ll blow off gymnastics one week and see you there.

^[1]  No, I’m not some hipster that I can’t be caught liking a popular band, but I know that there’s more good music out there than I can handle in a lifetime, and find it much more rewarding to be discovering new stuff.  That’s all.

Today was the Manchester Boys and Girls Clubs Day for Kids.  This year wasn’t quite as chaotic as last year, but, then again, Obama wasn’t giving a campaign speech across the street today.  We came later than planned, but still had plenty of time to see everything.

The absolute, hands down, coolest thing this year was a big model train display:

The girls also spent a fair amount of time coloring with oil pastels (not something we have hanging around at home) at the Currier booth.  Rhys worked on Will Barnet’s Awakening:

While Geraldine colored in William Zorach’s Plowing the Fields:

She got the tree branches and everything:

Rhys was very proud to take part in the Big Wheel race:

[Watch it on YouTube]

She also had fun with the giant toothbrush at the Small Smiles booth:

They had everything.  Like a petting zoo!

The other favorite, which I don’t have a picture of, was the pony rides.  Technically I have a video of it, but it would be the most boring 30 seconds of your life.  It was more fun to watch last year, when they had never done it before.  They were so excited.  Now they’re pony-riding pros.

And, of course, we stopped by to visit our good friends at the Manchester City Library.  We love those guys.  And not just because I’m on their payroll.

All this stuff for free?  (Excepting the pony rides, which were a token $3.)  You can’t beat it.  We’re already looking forward to next year.

One of our favorite things that the girls and I did this summer was go to the Palace Theatre on Tuesday mornings.  We had never been to the children’s plays before, but on a whim I got season tickets, so tickets were only $4.  I’m not a huge theater person and was pleasantly surprised how much fun it was for all of us—even me. Money well spent.

The first play we saw was Cinderella, and I spent a lot of the time talking to Rhys about the fact that they were real people, but that they were actors, and Please Don’t Yell During the Show!  Then when we got outside, we realized we could have met Cinderella if we had been standing in the right line, so we went back in and waited.  We became much more savvy at subsequent performances, and I occasionally remembered my camera, too.

With Charlotte (of Charlotte’s Web) on July 28th:

The other plays we saw were Willy Wonka, Charlotte’s Web, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Seussical, and Sleeping Beauty.  As evidenced by the fact that I wrote the word “dwarfs” (it goes against my nature not to write dwarves), the princess plays were based on the Disney versions, which makes sense when you’re trying to entertain a bunch of young children who only know one version of the stories.  Willy Wonka was based on the 1971 film, which I’ve never seen, but nonetheless thought that the fluorescent poster-board Oompa-Loompas were a nice touch.

The Palace also had High School Musical 2 running on the weekends throughout the summer, and I guess as cross-promotion, each of the plays in the children’s series ended with “What Time Is It? (Summertime).”  I’m completely unfamiliar with any of the High School Musical films, but eventually I figured out the point of it, and it became much less jarring to see (for example) Snow White and the dwarves jumping around and singing about school pride and wildcats and partying and sleeping late, or whatever.

With Snow White (who looked suspiciously like Cinderella) on August 4th:

My favorite play was definitely Snow White.  The Palace has summer theater camps, so they have a supply of child actors who take part in the plays (at least, I think that’s how it works).  The kids who played the dwarves were fantastic, especially the fellow who played Dopey—a budding physical comedian there.  Although Sleeping Beauty won the Scariest Queen Award.  When she came on stage, several children screamed or cried, and one just wouldn’t stop shrieking.  Classic.

With Sleeping Beauty, the prince, and the fairy godmothers on August 18th:

There is an encore performance of The Little Mermaid on Friday, September 11th at 6:30 PM.  We missed that one during the summer, so I think I’ll snatch up some tickets.  If you live in the area, you should come.  I’m thinking balcony seats.  See you there?

The band:  The Flannery Brothers, probably the most toe-tapping/dance-inducing sibling act out of Bangor.

The date/venue:  Sunday, August 16th, 2009 at 3:00 PM at the Kaleidoscope Children’s Museum in my hometown (Manchester, NH).  Though it was our second visit since they relocated from Concord, arriving at 2:30 didn’t allow sufficient time for exploration, and Rhys was too distracted to sit still for the show.  Geraldine sat through most of it.

Unfortunately for the Flannery Brothers, the “stage” is only about three inches off the ground.  Kids charging the stage wasn’t a huge issue (although the kid who wanted the tambourine got it), but there was no way for kids to get up and dance without blocking everyone who was seated.  And this show was meant for dancing.

The show:  They were a lot of fun.  A lot.  It was acoustic, with one guitar and sometimes a tambourine.  They were personable, with a fair amount of silliness.  And they played “Johnny B. Goode”!  Automatic +15 for Chuck Berry covers.

I took a video of their song “Sunglasses.”  The sound quality is pretty terrible.  They were playing in a huge open room.  I thought it sounded great when we were there, but my camera didn’t seem to think so.

The Music:  The Flannery Brothers debut album, Love Songs for Silly Things, came out last month.  The songs are fun and catchy, and—as I’m sure you’ve gathered from the title—typically silly.  There are none of those “moral” songs (e.g., it’s-really-fun-to-clean-your-room songs), nor “issue” songs (e.g., new-baby-sister songs), nor are they condescending (e.g., let’s-sing-about-farm-animals-because-that’s-something-kids-will-understand songs).  Theirs are the best kind of kids’ songs:  the this-is-genuinely-coming-from-us-but-will-appeal-to-you-too songs.  Add danceability and a large helping of humor, and you’ve got a can’t-lose album.

And I love that they’re local.

album reviews:
Dadnabbit

Of course we read many books every week, even if “Graves girls read!” only highlights one or two the weeks I’m moved to write one.  Ideally I would publish them on Thursdays as part of the What My Children Are Reading meme at The Well-Read Child, but my blogging is completely erratic these days, and frequently, uh, less frequent.  But always carefully written, as you can tell.

The book that stood out last week—because it was read a-purpose [said the Djinn]—was Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey.  It’s long been present on their bookshelves, but I can’t remember reading it to them previously.  As I’ve said, I’m a Blueberries for Sal girl; but then, I’m also a Maine girl.

Make Way is an adorable story, though, and I can’t imagine why it’s been sitting on the shelf so long.  I guess because it’s a paperback.  Though I didn’t read without editorializing.  “The policeman (with his billy club)…” In retrospect, I’m not sure why I would draw attention to a blunt instrument designed to bludgeon “criminals,” but it didn’t register with them regardless.

The reason I broke out Make Way for Ducklings was that, on a whim, I decided to make a half a day of visiting the Public Garden, for the swan boats and, incidentally, the ducklings.  See, I have a half memory of riding a swan boat when I was roughly their age (it had to be before 1987, because I think I would half-remember the ducklings if they were there), and for some reason I decided it was important to pass that half memory down to them.

So we went last Saturday, and aside from a giant tree limb falling right next to us, we had a lot of fun.  We hit the swan boats first, while they were still open:

The island was swarming with ducks:

It was impossible to take pictures of the boats without recognizable faces in them, so I grabbed this one under the bridge:

The girls loved climbing all over the ducklings and Mrs. Mallard:

They were especially fond of Quack:

Footnote:  The girls are not at all convinced that ducks will eat peanuts.  [ EDIT:  This has been reconciled. ]

I think 48 hours is the best amount of time to subconsciously process an event, in most cases.  I’ve given Sunday’s Recess Monkey show more than twice that time, and now I have something else screaming for my attention, so here goes.

Overview:  If they come to your general area, you must, must go.

The Band:  Recess Monkey, a trio of Seattle elementary educators who are consistently compared to the Beatles (though I think they’re outgrowing that comparison).  The boys are Drew on guitar, Jack on Bass, and Daron on drums.

The Date/Venue:  Sunday, July 12th, 2009 at 12:30 PM at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.  We sat in the front row for fast access to the “dance floor.”

The Crowd:  It was a small group, and the kids were young.  There was a lot of enthusiasm and audience participation, which I think was owed to two factors:  parents who were willing to get up and participate, and the specificity and demonstration of tasks.  Reach up high, then get down low like your on a roller coaster.  Do the monkey bars, like this.  Make your mouth sound bubbly when you sing “aquarium.”  Stuff like that.

I got a look that I couldn’t quite place—something on the neutral/positive end of the spectrum, within the realm of inoffensive staring—from someone in the audience at one point…I think because I was singing along.  Um, yeah.  We’re fans.  We didn’t end up here by accident.

The Show:  We almost didn’t go, due to silly things like money and distance.  Pfft.  On one hand, I guess we would’t know what we were missing, but on the other hand, I can’t imagine having missed it.  It exceeded my expectations on all fronts.  Way awesome.

It was a good mix of new and old songs, with representation from all of their albums.  They opened with “Rainbow Road,” in a rendition that was an improvement over the album version—more upbeat, and with the “yellow trikes” lyric taken up an octave.  Loudly.  Here’s a list of the other songs I can remember them playing (not in chronological order):

• “Aquarium”
• “Backpack”
• “Boogie Monster”
• “Bubble Factory”
• “Down, Down, Down”
• “Fort”
• “Haven’t Got a Pet Yet”
• “Knocktapus”
• “Marshmallow Farm”
• “Monkey Bars”
• “Pet Shark”

Jack made a good emcee, to the extent that the term applies here.  Introducing the songs, giving instructions and furnishing examples, pointing out Drew’s cuteness (which earned applause)…he had it covered.

After the show, Rhys really wanted to say hi to the band, but they were busy packing up and getting out of the way for the Just So Stories production that was happening soon after, so that didn’t happen.  All was not lost, though, because we spotted Jarrett Krosoczka in the audience.  True story.  Recess Monkey recorded the Lunch Lady Comics theme, remember?  Anyway, before we went to say hi, she and I had this conversation:

Me:  Hey, see that guy in the yellow shirt?  (beat)  His name is Jarrett Krosoczka, and guess what?  (beat)  He wrote Bubble Bath Pirates!

Rhys:  My book?

Me:  Yeah!

Rhys:  My book that I get to keep?

Me:  Yeah!

Rhys:  My book that I got for Christmas?

Me:  Yeah!

Rhys:  That I get to keep?

Me:  Yeah!

Apparently I’m a cheerleader.  Also apparent:  we’ve been using the library so much that getting to keep a book is a huge deal.  Even though we own tons.  Anyway, we got to say hi, so she was happy, and I got to pat myself on the back for correctly identifying a kidlit author in the real world, so I was happy.  Also, his baby is rather cute.

I have no photographic evidence of this one, but check out the videos from Out with the Kids and Spare the Rock from the day before/of.  And I hear there’s going to be a RM segment on tomorrow’s Spare the Rock.

We don’t always make it (especially during the year when I have to work half the time), but we like to go to Family Saturdays at the Currier Museum of Art.  Admission is always free on Saturday mornings, but I don’t think the results would be too great if we brought the girls on a day when there wasn’t going to be an art activity in the studio.  Today’s activity was “Turning Wood into Art.”  The kids chose up to five wood objects, colored them with markers, and told the staff how they wanted to have them glued together.  Check them out:

LEFT Lady by Geraldine,  RIGHT Dragonfly by Rhys

Lady started off with the ability to stand, but the glue on her arms didn’t hold.  And, yes, those are purple nostrils on dragonfly.

There are two fantastic exhibitions at the Currier right now.  The one that I was way amped to see was Turning Wood into Art: on loan from the Mint Museum of Craft + Design in Charlotte, NC (and the inspiration for today’s art activity).  Uhm, wow.  My favorites were Hap Sakwa’s de Chirico Salad and Po Shun Leong’s Pompeii.  Seriously.  Check them out.

We had a beautiful family moment at that exhibition.  There were three pieces grouped together, and when I asked the girls to choose a favorite, Rhys chose the first, Geraldine chose the second, and my favorite was the third.  I don’t remember theirs, but mine was Johannes Michelson’s When Lightning Strikes.  Gorgeous.  I just love that we each had a separate favorite.  I characteristically went to the one that highlighted imperfection.

The other exhibition featured the work of Gary Haven Smith and Gerald Auten.  If you live anywhere remotely near us, you should check out their stuff.  You have until September 13th.

Now that we’ve been to the Currier a handful of times, a family favorite has revealed itself:  Theodore Roszak’s Cradle Song.  The girls remark on it each time.  Actually, we all do.  Although…I took another stroll through contemporary today, and I have a pretty deep love for Marisol Escobar’s The Family.  That photo does not do it justice.

The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire in Dover is one of the best places in the state for young kids to have fun.  Last weekend our family visited for the second time since they moved from their Portsmouth location.  We loved the museum from its Portsmouth days—we had a membership, and we even had the girls’ 1st/3rd joint birthday party there.  Now that the museum has moved to a larger, more open space, they’ve taken something great and made it awesome.

Me:  Rhys, what do you like best about the children’s museum?

Rhys:  I like to go in the submarine.  It has sharks.  And anglerfish. ^[1]  They try to stop us!

Me:  What about you, Geraldine?  What do you like best at the museum?

Gigi:  I like the post office.  You get to send letters.  A lot of them!

Nate:  I think she likes the phone, too.

Me:  Yeah, she does.

Nate:  Don’t you want to know what I like?

Me:  Of course…

Nate:  I…like the thing with the rain that goes up and comes down…and I like the big huge thing in the middle…and the sonar…and…I like the fish ladder…thingie…and that whole room is cool!

Gigi:  And I like the kids’ cafe and the dancing on the TV, and the rain thing.

Nate:  You don’t really have to put mine in there.

Me:  Oh, but I do.  Especially the way you expressed it like a child, in a big, run-on sentence.

Nate:  That’s what I was going for!

What do I like best?  I’m tempted to say the Cochecosystem, which is extremely cool (and was also still under construction the last time we went) but this particular visit, on May 23rd, I enjoyed the Gallery 6 exhibit, “From Scribble to Finish:  Illustrating Children’s Picture Books”:

It was very cool, with rough sketches, finished products, and everything in between, and they were all by illustrators with local ties.  Now, I’d love to tell you to run-don’t-walk down to see it, but the thing is, the exhibit was from April 1st to June 1st, so I’m afraid you can’t run fast enough.  The next exhibit promises to be fantastic, though:  It’s going to be a textile arts exhibit, and the museum tweeted a sneak peek a couple weeks ago.  Looks cool, doesn’t it?

Ok.  I didn’t bring “From Scribble to Finish” up just to rub it in your face that you missed it.  I have good news—it’s Blog Locally Week, something I just made up, at ayuddha.net this week!  Stay tuned.

^[1]  She pronounced “anglerfish” very deliberately.  And accurately.