Shucks

This is what my 4 year old boy was doing this afternoon.

Shucking and sucking raw oysters right off the shell:-)

 

Meanwhile, this is what my daughter was doing.

Can anybody say gender roles stereotype?

Space

After a full night of laughs, wine, a little bit of rum and regrettably my once every 10 years Burger King double cheese-burger, I really really needed to get my toxic body into a yoga class followed by a steam room.

So I did.

When I got to the Yoga class, it was packed. The teacher was moving around mats to make sure everyone had room.

When she sat down to begin the class, she started by saying that sometimes it's a good thing to realize how we don't really need all the space we think we need. That sometimes, space is overrated.

I guess she could sense the fear most of us had in our eyes...like, “Oh my God what if I touch the person next to me's gross feet....or what if the person next to me can smell MY gross feet or worse...the dreaded fart!”

Anyhow, the class was great. I was still not able to NOT think about all the laundry I had to do during savasana, but at least I tried!

This whole personal space concept got me thinking.

I remember when I first moved here to Louisiana, one of the first things that I noticed was that people would hug and kiss each other whenever they saw each other. It was their way of saying hello.

It was very awkward for me at first.

Back home in Canada, this greeting does not happen. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think, in general the French Acadians are very reserved, private people who would rather you not invade their personal space.

Hugs
Mise en ligne par j/k_lolz

So when I first moved here to Louisiana, when I would see someone that I kind of sort of knew, I would think to myself, “Do I go in for the hug? Do I kiss? Once? On both cheeks?”

It made for very uncomfortable moments:-)

Luckily, I eventually got used to it and it soon became second nature to me.

But what I find really interesting, is that now, when I visit home, in Nova-Scotia, it's awkward when I DON'T give a hug and a kiss to someone I know. We’re just standing there, looking at each other like a couple of awkward weirdos.

So anyway, it was fascinating for me to think that the Cajuns, who I think are very physically welcoming, come from a culture, the Acadians, that tend to be more reserved and not so much touchy-feely.

Either way, both Cajuns and Acadians share one same thing.....they will always invite you to the party, hugs or not!

Flamenco Date Night

 For this week's Wednesday night date night, my husband and I had the chance to go to the Heymann Performance Arts Center for one of the Performance Arts Society of Acadiana's (PASA) 2010-2011 shows. The show was Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca, a flamenco ensemble from Madrid. It took my breath away. If someone had asked me to write a critic about this performance, this is what I would have written.

Four chairs. Four bodies. Two guitars. A red dress.

Gut-wrenching native chants that command every space that surrounds them.

Soul, passion and seduction through the twist of a wrist and the soles of the feet.

Percussion.

Percussion beyond rhythms and beats. Percussion that cannot be taught or learned. Percussion that you are born with, to the marrow of your bones.

Strings being plucked with such intent and dedication that they resonate through the bodies with coinciding peaks and valleys.

Beauty, elegance and womanly grace flows like syrup through the tip of the fingers down through the core of the arch of the back, but with bestial ferociousness that can not be contained.

Power.

The essence of pure manliness, put with the finesse and poise of a matador's feet.

Compete control, yet total reckless abandonment.

Fire. Love. Poetry. Bliss.

This show was, by far, one of the best shows I've witnessed in a long time. Thank you PASA for giving us the chance to experience such raw talent.

For PASA show listings and tickets go to http://www.pasa-online.org/.

Oh, and to all you moms and dads out there, the next show (Feb 4th) is Louisiana's own Imagination Movers...they're gonna move you! A show that does NOT require sitting still....how often does that happen?:-)

Forgive And Forget

In this world, I think we tend to instantly forgive two kinds of people: celebrities and children.

Whether it is writing with a sharpie on my red leather lazy boy recliner (children) or sleeping around with any tattooed, lip pierced show girl (celebrity), we forgive.....and fast.

(..with one exception to the rule: my husband does not forgive Julia Roberts for what she did to Lyle Lovett...whatever that was!)

A sweet smile (child) or an Oscar worthy performance (celebrity) and all is forgotten.

Photo by Gwen Aucoin http://www.gwenaucoin.com/

If only I could forgive my husband for leaving his socks on the floor as easily as I forgive my 2 year old for “cleaning” my brand new iPhone in our dog's water bowl, I think my life would be a lot simpler and easier.

I understand why we forgive children. They don't know better...well, in reality, most do, but their lack of life experience trumps their disregard for basic human decency.

The thing I understand less is the celebrity part. Is it because we regard them as “God like” creatures who need not adhere to the basic life rules that we common folk follow? Or is it because the more times we forgive, the more we are able to watch them self-destruct over and over again, the more we can feel better about ourselves?

Anyway, thanks to the fantastic, impartial journalism over at E!News, we will forever be able to keep track of those shady, racist, home-wrecking celebrities, forgiving and forgetting over and over again.

And as for children, what are we to do? Hold a grudge? I doubt that would work. Children are so oblivious to anything unless it's filthy, shiny or candy. (OK people I know that's not true...but it's funny).

Maybe we should all try to forgive and forget like we do kids and celebrities.

Or not.

Either way, the socks will still be on the floor and the sharpie ain't coming out!

Oh and if you like what you read (or you just feel like being nice) don't forget to click on the "like" button below:-)

Speed Read

I swear I can do this:  http://comedy.video.yahoo.com/?l=3774749&v=8711175 !

Speed reading is one of my specialties!

I confess, when my kids were younger I would ever so discreetly skip pages while reading the bed time story.

But, come on, have y'all read a Dr. Seuss book lately? They're like 60 pages long of words that do not exist in the English vocabulary.

Now however, there is no way I'm skipping those pages.

Nope, my kids have all...and I mean ALL, of their books memorized and they're is no way to pull a fast one on them.

Now, every time I try to shorten the book, I hear "MOM! You skipped a page!" and then I pretend it was an accident.

So instead, I have mastered the art of reading an entire book without even realizing that I'm doing so (like when you're driving your car and 10 minutes pass and you wonder how the hell you got where you are??).

I also manage (in my head) to make my to do list for the next day, plan the weekly meals and ponder if it's time to send my 4 year old son to preschool! 

All that in 61 pages of Cat In The Hat.

However, I do sometimes take my time and really pay attention to Thing One and Thing Two, but after a long day of picking up poop off the floor and mediating brawls, I think I deserve to slip into my head once in a while when bedtime story time finally rolls around:-)

P.S Yes, the colors of this page have changed...I'm playing:-)

Oh and if you like what you read don't forget to click on the "like" button below:-)

Terrible Twos

So, lately my two year old boy is the most “interesting” person in our house.

Not that that everyone else is boring, it's just that he is really starting to make a name for himself.

In my opinion, it's at two years old that kids really start to get a sense of what's going on around them.

They finally start do realize that there is more to life then nipples and cheerios.

Gone are the days when I could hide his pacifier and he wouldn't even try looking for it since he thought it had magically disappeared (now he would scale mountains and fight dragons to get to that damn pacifier) or sneak out of the house without him noticing (like I was foolishly trying to do when I took the picture below).

They call it the terrible twos, but it's sure as hell not terrible for them!

Uh, not without me you're not!

They get to slowly, non-methodically and eventually unsuccessfully try to put on their socks (by themselves of course) while you watch impatiently, trying so hard to restrain your own hands so you don't just grab those little fat feet and put those damn socks on yourself so the kids waiting in the van won't attempt to drive themselves to the dentist appointment (for which you're already 15 minutes late).

“NO! I DO IT!”

However, when year number two rolls around there are SOME good things that start happening.

My two year old now realizes that the toilet bowl isn't just for bathing his little dinosaurs.

Also, when he wakes me up in the middle of the night he is able to tell me, with words, what he wants.....mostly he just wants to watch movies on my I phone...at 3:00 am!

Well, I guess however bad or “interesting” my two year old is, he makes for good pictures!

Bed

Somebody get this child a bed!

(And, for the record, he fabricated this bed all by his very self!)