Total Pageviews

Pages

Friday, December 28, 2012

Hidden Mickeys!

Hidden Mickeys!
    
     Let me just begin with saying that if you are traveling to FL with a child, you better be going to see Mickey.  For weeks, we had planted in Sophie's head that we were all so excited to go see Mia and Poppo in Florida.  All those plans were sucked right out the airplane window, as we boarded the flight to ORLANDO, where every person who sees a child going to Florida asks them, with the very kindest intentions, if they are going to Disney.  Sophie's eyes grew wide and she nodded yes and added "see Mickey and Minnie and Donald and Goofy."  As the news settled on MY ears, I knew I had to do something.  Not to worry, there are plenty of character themed restaurants, right?  Uncle Trey and Tia were taking her to the Nemo show, which would be fun.  As each air-mile flew by and Sophie called out the window, "We're coming Mickey!"  I knew that I just couldn't disappoint.  Not if I could help it.  We did, indeed, after tireless searching and phone calls, get a last minute reservation at Chef Mickey's at Disney's Contemporary Resort, which was everything a parent could dream of.  You actually sit and eat and all their favorite Disney friends come and visit you.  They don't just walk by, they visit, dance, interact, sign, and hug.  Phew.  I felt an overwhelming sense of relief as we left knowing that I didn't crush my child's dreams.  She, however, proved once more that she was more in touch with true happiness and magic than I could dare to remember.
     Later that week, we stepped out into a beautiful summer day in FL and began the short walk to my grandparents house. The walk I'd done a thousand times was made new by the fact that my Sophie now accompanied me. My sweet girl pushed her baby in the stroller as we walked past neighbor's homes and onto the main street of our subdivision. Oh, I remembered, here's where I went over the handle bars of my bike and had to get stitches in my chin. And there's where my brother ran his trike into a car, over and over again. And this is the driveway where a firecracker went up under grandaddy's car.  We all have something in the neighborhood of those memories, on the streets of our childhood. For (ahem) years, I've viewed them through the eyes of my childhood. Now, as a parent, my perspective shifted and snapped into a decidedly different position. At first glance, it sounds like that could be a bad thing, a sad thing, or a mourning of the gap between childhood and where I live now. Allow me to assure you though that the revelation is anything but.  In fact, the revelation is...invigorating.
     Sophie abruptly stopped her stroller, pointed to the sky and said..."I See Mickey!" "I See Mickey" once more for effect. Sure enough, there he was, manifested in a conglomoration of fluffy white clouds passing over our neighborhood. She handed me the stroller and walked with even more determination the remaining half block to Grandmom and Granddad's. Yes, they live in the same neighborhood.  There, we found Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus outside the house. She chatted with them and gave Jesus some milk before we headed to the porch to visit the life-sized Santa.  You may have heard of the "Hidden Mickeys" that can be found all over Disney property.  If not, they are Mickey shaped reminders that the magic is everywhere.  Who knew that we didn't need that elaborate trip to Chef Mickey's to find the Big Cheese though, he was right in our front yard.
     The new experiences that Soph was creating, minded the gap between my own childhood and adulthood. As a parent, I now have the privilege to see the world through her eyes. The wonder, surprise, and excitement, without expectation. As adults we are constantly allowing ourselves to be let down because that movie didn't end the way we thought it should or it's chicken instead of beef at the wedding. Let it go. After you have taken care of your parental responsibilities...i.e. paying the bills, doing the laundry, planning the meals. Enjoy the perks. Allow yourself to see Mickey in the sky.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Top 10 Petersen Happenings of 2012!

Top 10 Petersen Happenings of 2012!

1.  Moving into our first house, after years of renting.  We had tons of fun, making it our own.  Painting walls, getting furniture your parents aren't afraid to sit on, and being able to keep more than 2 suitcases worth of clothes in a normal sized closet.  Ahhhhhh, domesticity.

2.  Getting our first Disney Annual Passes as a family.  Need I say more?

3.  Soph begins to sing full songs from memory.  The first night she sang her lullabies with us to sleep, we had an "I can't believe this is happening" moment.

4.  Sophie's first day of preschool. Tears.  She's going 3 half days, which is postponed to 2013 (explained as you read on), but she thrived the few weeks she was able to go.

5.  Potty Training Sophie.  She nailed it!  Let's be honest though, not until the experience yielded a good cry from Mommy, Daddy, and Soph.  It is after you reach the cliff hanger and consider that peeing in your pants the rest of your life might not be THAT bad, that all of the sudden it clicks and we can all pick ourselves up and pull it together.

6.  Mom Morabito babysits overnight, so we are able to go away to a resort outside Santa Barbara.  A generous gift from dear friends that we finally got to use.  We really enjoyed and needed that overnight vacay at that moment this year.

7.  Lisa signs with an LA agent and gets back in the game with a regional commercial for Robbins Bros. Engagement Rings.

8.  Eric works on Disney Channel's number one kid's show "Jessie" and subsequently gets cast as a recurring character called Catawampus on Disney XD's "Pair of Kings."

9.  Eric books the broadway show "Peter and The Starcatcher."  We transport the fam to New York for a magical Fall into Winter.  Renting out our house to 4 recent college grads, we crossed fingers and prayed that they'd take care of the place.   We packed the garage with our personal items, emptied the closets and drawers we just finished organizing, cleaned out the kitchen and bathrooms, and de-babyfied Sophie's room.

10.  Survived living in the tiniest one bedroom on the Upper West Side, with a toddler.  The hotel rooms on tour were often bigger than the apt. we are renting now.  We took great pride in really New Yorking it up though.  Frequent visits to The Museum of Natural History, The Children's Museum of Manhattan, Central Park, Riverside Park, and many other New York City landmarks were both fun and educational for us, as well as Soph.  You can't help but bond as a family when you have to work as a team just to get in the door of your apt.  Okay, open the door, everyone go to the bedroom so we can shut the door, and now you can come back into the living room.  It's a dance.  Please know we view this as an adventure, not a problem.  aka. 1st World Problems.

Bonus Happening:  Eric shoots the pilot of a new TV show for TVLand called "Giant Baby" in which he plays the Giant Baby of Kirstie Alley.  In this super funny show, Eric is alongside comedic legends Michael Richards (Kramer), Rhea Pearlman (Carla on Cheers) and the aforementioned Kirstie Alley.  Let me just say, Eric is totally ready for this moment.  Can't wait for everyone to get to share in the excitement when, contingent on the network pick-up, it will air in the Fall of 2013 on TVLand.  This show will bring us back to our home in LA!

Looking forward to an adventurous 2013!


Tell us your favorite family happenings of 2012!!!!!!!    We want to know!









Saturday, December 22, 2012

Si-i-lent No...

     I can't say I was surprised that my child acted like an outright angel upon arrival in FL.  Grandmommy came into the airport to help and Sophie put on her sweetest face and reached out with excitement.  She got in the car and kept us all laughing all the way to Chipotle, with her comedic timing and the way she repeats what everyone says, she is just the most priceless parrot on the planet.  On the way to the restaurant, she melted their hearts as she held hands and said "loooove you.".  Everyone they passed looked on approvingly.  I looked on said onlookers and welled with pride.  By the time we all sat down with our food, Soph had that look in her eye. You know what look.  That, I know I'm really cute and I might be able to actually get away with something using my cuteness as a distraction, look.  From her high chair, looking round the table as if she had called us here for an important meeting, she folded her arms, gave a big head nod and reprimanded us all, out of nowhere, with a defiant "nnnno.".
     The approving looks snatched into raised eyebrows and flashed back to their own tables. Grandmom and Granddad couldn't help but laugh a bit, and my pride turned to my signature mom look coupled with a dash of close eye contact and pointed direction as I factually "took care" of the matter and said Sophia, "There is no reason for you to act that way.  If you don't want something, you can say no thank you."  There.  All fixed.  Moving on.
     Not so fast, said my baby girl.
     "No.".................  "No."   She played her cards slowly.
     "If you do it again, we are going outside," I cautioned her.
     My 2 yr old put her arms up as if it were a roller coaster ride, looked at me coyly out of the side of her eyes, and mouthed the word "noooooooooo.".
     She soon found out that mouthing the word and saying the word are one in the same.
As we left our food and the restaruant and the company of fun great-grandparents, she began to realize that mommy was serious. That look of "What?  You were for real about that leaving thing?" washed over her face.  Boredom is my ally right now. Taking her out of a fun situation, removing toys and cell phones, and sitting in a time out where mommy is an icy version of quiet, has proved to elicit just the right penance.  Soon enough, she relinquished an "I'm sorry, Mommy" and we headed to the car. She was asleep in minutes. A flight can be exhausting, but having to learn follow rules can really do a toddler in. I reflect on this "Silent No Showdown."  Could I have done a better job of getting her food earlier, did I understand she was tired from a different schedule for flying?  Yes.  Rules are rules though.  No matter where you are.  I will say though, that I appreciate that my little girl enjoys a challenge. We'll just have to try to direct that into a fun, healthy, competitive soccer career or something.  She is one tough cookie, but a cookie nonetheless.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Where Was I?

      I cannot express in words the deep sorrow that filled my soul on the day of the shooting in the elementary school in Newtown, CT. Somehow, I doubt that I need to, as most of you felt the exact same sorrow on that day and for the days that followed. Immediatly, I thought of Soph, who was with my brother and sister-in-law, in FL. I felt so sick about the whole thing I couldn't feel my arms. How could this happen? How are the parents ever going to cope? This is something we have to worry about now? An elementary school? God help them.
     2012 held a great amount of change for our family.  We were constantly riding the current of a sometimes fast and furious, sometimes tortuously slow transition into Los Angeles from NYC, back to NYC, and then back to LA.  Every decision hinged on what was best for Sophie and her future.  I went to work full time briefly in LA, while Eric had a slow time for a few months.  Then Eric caught a wave and was working like crazy and I was once again able to be with Sophie full time.  My point is, at every moment of every day, our children are with us, whether they are physically there or not.  They drive our decisions and thus everything that comes to be in our lives.  Our life becomes something more than we could imagine, constantly being pushed outside the boundaries of what we know.   With that being snatched from underneath our fellow parents in a moment, it's difficult to imagine how they'll go on.
     It is impossible to speak to what those families must be going through.  They have been separated and they are going to need a great measure of faith to get through this separation.  I believe those children are in heaven now and that they are experiencing peace beyond our understanding.  It is all those left behind...the families of the departed, the survivors, and the world that mourns them all, that have to find a way to get through this life without them and without the surety of what we previously defined as safe and secure.  We are all forever changed.
     How do we go on?  After just standing in disbelief for days straight, we have to focus on the life those children did have, on the teachers who acted as heroes, and on a world who is left with a demand for change.
     Eric called me crying the day of the tragedy, which happened to be the same day that they would record his new tv show.  The show is to be comedy, something to help people escape the tragedies life brings us and cope with laughter at the silly shenanigans of pretend characters and situations.  He felt as  the rest of us parents, that he could see nothing else that day.  I told him that we would be dealing with the reality of this tragedy for many days to come, but he had a responsibility today.  He had to think that there will be a time when these families need to laugh, need to escape their tragic reality and this is a show that could help them...even one of them.  Focus on your artistic responsibility to tell a story that will, for a brief moment, bring someone some joy, or at the very least draw their attention from the stark reality of their lives.  In the next few hours, he and the rest of the brilliant cast, put the world outside, and brought the audience into a world where we could laugh and awww at their mishaps and silliness.  Comedy is really a beautiful sort of therapy.
     In the days that have followed Eric and I have both cried tears for those directly effected and for the new reality that we all live in wherein things like this do actually happen.  I hope and pray for those parents that by the grace of God, they find a way to survive this tragedy.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Monday, December 10, 2012

Random Acts of Christmas

 Random Acts of Christmas   
     On a cold day in 2006, I was working on the Upper East side of Manhattan.  On this particular day, I was feeling home sick, tired, and beaten down.  Eric and I were dating, he was on tour, and I was in a dry spell as an artist.  As I walked down the west side of 3rd Ave., a bustling stranger with arms full of bags hailed a taxi a few feet in front of me.  He opened the door of the cab, ran over to me on the sidewalk, said "Merry Christmas" and shoved a package into my arms and disappeared into his previously hailed cab.  I opened the bag and peeked in...It was a giant balsam Christmas candle!  Oh, it smelled like my parents house at Christmas!  I immediately loved it!  I wanted to thank him, but he was long gone.  I felt like I had lived that moment in "A Christmas Carol" when Scrooge realizes the error of his ways and goes up and down the streets shoving money and joy in peoples faces.  I don't know if he was Scrooge, Santa, or someone in between, but it was a magical happening for me.  I believed again in the spirit of Christmas.  I didn't even know the spirit had gone missing until I found it again, in the smallest act of a stranger.
     As my perspective of Christmas has changed with my role of being a parent, I feel a responsibility to instill a heart of generosity in my little one.  Please share ways that you let your little one be on the giving end of generosity.  Do you know of volunteer opportunities for kids and parents?  Have you done any random acts of kindness this season?