Day 28- April 9, 2020

Day 28- April 9, 2020

Today is the four week mark, and mother nature seems to be making it clear that she wants us all to stay inside in my little area of the world.  The wind literally woke us with its howling, as it swirled and danced through the trees, ripping off fine twigs and leaves in its wake.  There was an anger to it, which reminds me of how my younger daughter shakes and her face contorts when she loses a game, and her emotions get the better of her.

It was clearly not a day for outside work or play, and we established a low-key indoor routine of

Legos, reading, occasionally video chatting with friends, and baking.  I made a bagel recipe that we haven't used in years, but always cheers up the girls, and with our Trader Joes "everything but the bagel" seasoning from the cupboard, it helped create a touch of comfort.  Bagels require patience- you have put all the ingredients together and whip them with a bread hook, waiting patiently while the gluten develops.  There is an alternative to this involving kneading, but my shoulder is still smarting from the yard work yesterday, so I let the Kitchen Aid mixer do the heavy lifting.  Then, the dough has to rise for two hours, be punched down and rolled into strips, formed into snakes (play-doh style), and finally rounded into bagels and dropped into a vat of boiling water and honey.  With all the preliminary steps complete, it can finally be baked, and eaten.

While the bagels were cooking, I created an obstacle course for the girls, setting up cones in the living room to dribble a soccer ball through, and a "goal" in the form of a piano bench.  Then they jumped over the bench, turned, ran and couch arm jumped onto the couch, and read a sentence in their book Eleanor Roosevelt Is In My Garage before hitting the button on the air purifier.  We ran this several times, each time trying to break a time record.

I also caught the last episode of Modern Family with the girls, which I wanted to watch today instead of last night because I didn't want to miss any of it while putting the children to bed, and because the girls love the show too.  Having watched it since it began airing over a decade ago, it was comforting to see it end on a happy note for all involved.  So often, comedies will suddenly try to tackle a painful subject int he series finale and totally miss the mark it has been hitting for so many years (see How I Met Your Mother, a show I haven't watched an episode of since its finale because of how brutal it was.  And I watched literally every episode as it aired up to then, plus syndication).

Modern Family instead gave some gleeful moments of laughter (Claire and Mitchell being a real human claw game to grab their skating trophy), heartfelt love (Jay learning Spanish for Gloria), happy endings (Cam getting his dream job and their family, complete with new baby Rexford, moving to Missouri), and of course, some tears (now-empty-nesters Phil and Claire in their daughters' room- but even that led to a moment of "it's not that bad- the kids will visit" moment to lessen the blow).  It was a perfect ending, and a salve in these days of such uncertainty. This family will remain intact, no matter where they are, because are always connected by the love they share with each other.

We had our own family time too, when we watched a movie called Little Giants.  If you're not familiar with this Ed O'Neill/Rick Moranis gem, it's about a former football player (O'Neill) who now coaches pee-wee football.  His niece Becky (Shawna Waldron) is the best player trying out, but because she's a girl, he cuts her (along with a group of weaker players).  His brother (a single dad played by Moranis) takes on coaching a rival squad made up of Becky, the leftover kids, and a new player Junior (who Becky has a crush on, and happens to be the son of the very-single woman that Moranis had a crush on when they were kids.

Full disclosure, I loved playing football as a kid.  In fact, if you look through my answers to all those "what do you want to be when you grow up?" a lot of them say "Be the first female football player in the NFL".  My nickname in elementary school was Little Miss Morris, named after Joe Morris of the New York Giants. He was tiny and quick, and the name stuck.  I was elusive, able to quick step and sprint faster than any of the boys at my school, which led to a number of touchdowns.

So watching a football movie starring a girl who could go toe to toe with any of the guys in it was enthralling to me as a kid.  I haven't seen the movie in years, but it popped up on our Amazon Prime feed in the "kids' movies" section, and after explaining the premise ("a girl kicks some boys' butts at football") to R. and E., we started the film.  It is one thing to watch a movie you enjoy- it's quite another to experience it again through your children's eyes, and delight in their giggles and outright cheering.  For the last sequence in the film, E. couldn't contain herself, and hopped off the couch, running in place with the kids on the screen, and shouting "go Go GOOO!!!" as the Little Giants, of course, pulled off the upset on an unfathomable final play.

There's a lot to be learned from the film.  Yes, Moranis and O'Neill are brilliant comedic actors, but there's an underlying heart to the movie, a message about choosing family first and taking care of each other.  Oh yes, and anything a boy can do, a girl can do just as well (and in the case of Becky, even better).