Easter Bunny letter

I want to post about a very momentous occasion that happened last Thursday - Maggie graduated from Walden - but an equally momentous thing happened just today and I wanted to write about it before I forget. The Easter Bunny wrote Sally a letter! Here's the story - Sally loves Easter. Loves it. Maybe even more than Christmas. She loves the chocolate and the egg dying and the baskets. She decorates her room with eggs and bunnies. I'm just saying, this girl loves Easter. So, last week when she told me she wanted to write the Easter Bunny a letter I wasn't too surprised. She wrote - Dear Easter Bunny, I miss you. Eat a lot of carrots. Love, Sally. She drew a picture, put it in an envelope and mailed it. And the she started waiting. Each day when the mailman comes she looks to see if the Easter Bunny has replied. So today at work I had Stacy write Sally a letter as the EB(Stacy is very crafty). The letter is gorgeous and Stacy decorated it with ribbons and butterfly stickers, I tell you, it's a work of art. And when I came home from work and 'found it' on the front porch and told Sally ... oh my God, she was so excited! She ran down the front path to see if she could catch him hopping away. She proudly stared at her beautiful letter for quite sometime before sitting down to write Santa. I think Sally's correspondence is going to keep Stacy very busy.

Washington DC

Maggie and I went to Washington DC in March to see the Holocaust Museum.  Maggie did her 6th grade inquiry project on the Holocaust and we thought this would be a nice field trip to add to the report.  We had a great time seeing all the monuments and walking around DC, we ate the best dessert ever(a blondie sundae that we still reminisce about) and we got to see Kate who flew in from NY to visit.  What a great girls weekend!  Ps we had a star sighting, Sean Penn was in the restaurant we ate our blondie sundae at)

day at the park

On Saturday Maggie and I went to Los Feliz for her haircut and then met Tony and Sally in Griffith park for the pony rides and the train ride and the carousel.  It was fun.  We ate cotton candy and I almost ate a hot dog but then I thought better of it and stuck to the cotton candy.  

underwear on their heads

This is what Tony and I found when we came home from a walk the other night - the girls had run ahead and gotten home before us and gone into the house, put underwear and crowns on their heads and were 'guarding' the entrance when we arrived.  Our neighbor saw them first and was like, 'your girls are so funny ...' We weren't sure what she was talking about and then we rounded the corner.  By the way, only 2 1/2 days left of school, and tomorrow is the all school playdate where the whole school walks to the park and there's a huge kickball game (6th grade vs the teachers) and everyone gets popscicles, so that doesn't really count as school, so really there's only 1 1/2 days left.  Seems kind of unfair because Tony and I just started back at work today and there are like 3 billion days left .... and no popscicles .... maybe I need to put some underwear on my head to cheer myself up, it worked for the girls ...

TV or Not TV

Maggie with her class before the play getting an inspirational speech from the director

Sally before the play with Daniel from her class.  They were supposed to dress up like 1950's moms and dads since their segment was a song to the Brady Bunch tune.  

Last night was the all school play at Walden.  Both girls were fantastic.  Really.  Maggie had one of the lead parts, she played an alien sent down to earth to steal earth TV.  Don't ask.  The plot was a little all over the place.  Before I sing Maggie's praises let me talk about Sally.  I remember watching the play when Maggie was in 1st or 2nd grade.   It was the night before we left for China and I watched it thinking that there would come a day when both my daughters were up there performing.  It seemed so far away, so weird and impossible.  And it also felt, at the time, like a benchmark.  Watching your kids in the very homemade Walden play is a pleasure like no other.  The whole school turns out and no matter how 'good' the play is, everyone gets a chance to shine and it's always great.  So last night was that night I dreamed about and it was perfect.  Sally was so cute and she sang and did all the choreography and waved at me from the stage like I had seen other kids do that night before we left for China.  It was also bittersweet because as both girls were onstage together taking their curtain call I realized this will be the last time the two of them are in the same school and that made me sad.

Now, onto Maggie's performance.  Um.  She has timing, and stage presence and a beautiful voice.  Someone said to Tony last night, "looks like you have an actor there." Tony responded, "You couldn't have said anything that would hurt me more."  I'm thrilled.  I feel like she's finally stepping out of the shadows and inhabiting all the wonderfulness of Maggie.  She was so funny and even when she wasn't talking she was reacting and alive onstage.  You couldn't take your eyes off her.  Yay Maggie.  As I told you last night, "you should act in high school and college because the acting department is where all the fun, cool people are and acting training is such a good base for anything you want to do in life.  Like be a doctor.  Because that's what you're going to be Maggie, a doctor.  Are we clear?"  I don't think she heard a word I said because she had her headphones on.   Sigh.