Hot Squirrel and Disney on Ice

Yesterday, Gabe came with to do the grocery shopping. Usually I try to take one kid or the other with me to do the shopping, just to spread the misery out as much as possible. Gabe used to enjoy it, but over the past few months has gotten to the point where he'll come up with any excuse he can to get out of going. Yesterday, though, I had the "If you want to go to Disney on Ice later, then you're going to have to help me with the shopping." Obviously, since we'd already purchased the tickets, there was zero chance that we would skip the show, but, fortunately, Gabe hasn't been able to decipher all of my many and varied idle threats yet. Which is good, since idle threats are my primary parenting weapon. 

Anyway, as we were walking down the soda aisle, he grabbed a bottle of red gatorade and wanted me to get it.

"This is what I called Rigade," he informed me.  I'd heard this story from Libby already. She had some orange gatorade at Gabe's last soccer game (which, by the by, is going HORRIBLY--Gabe has completely lost interest in soccer and is now the kid who just sits out on the field and/or follows the refs around trying to strike up casual conversations with them instead of doing what he's supposed to be doing. It's kind of a nightmare. I'll try to get some good video next time to properly document it.) and he, for some reason or other, decided to call it Rigade.

"No, that is what you call Hot Squirrel. The orange gatorade is Rigade."

"No," he corrected, "the orange gatorade is Hot Squirrel (do you like how I capitalize the made up stuff and use lower case on the actual brand name?). The red gatorade is Rigade."

"Not a bit of it. I can prove it when we get home because I wrote it all down right after the Hot Squirrel thing happened."

And then, by the time we got home, I forgot all about it.

Fortunately, he reminded me of it this afternoon, so I spent some time trying to figure out where I'd documented the Hot Squirrel incident. After scanning nearly a year of stuff on here (because I don't know how to set this site up so I can keyword search everything, and don't care enough to spend the time I'd need to do so), I figured I must not have posted anything about it on here. Which left Facebook. Which also doesn't have any good way to search previous posts. Eventually, however, I did find it. From April of 2012. 

It saddens me that it never made it onto this blog, as this blog is what I consider my official parenting documentation for the children to go back to years from now so they can accurately pinpoint when and how I screwed them up to help streamline their therapy sessions. It sucks that Facebook has become my go-to place to post this kind of stuff.

But, then, people actually read my facebook posts, so someone at least will see the silly things my kids are doing.

Anyway, here's the official recounting of the Hot Squirrel thing:

"Gabe, as we walk by a soda vending machine: "I want to get some hot squirrel." Me: "Hot squirrel?" Gabe: "I LOOOOVE hot squirrel!" Me: "I understand the concept of a hot squirrel (a lie), but I don't see how it relates to soda." Gabe: "Remember when we were watching Tin Tin and I spilled the hot squirrel all over Nana and Poppa's carpet?" Me: "Gatorade?" Gabe: "Yeah. I call it hot squirrel." Me: "Ah, well, we don't keep hot squirrel in our house because you have a record of spilling it on carpets." Gabe: "Ahhhhhh."   And Hot Squirrel was born. And now it's documented in a way that I might be able to go back and check on at some point in the future.   In other news, we went to Disney on Ice yesterday . . . .    It wasn't bad, really. I mean, the show itself wasn't even that bad. I have very low expectations of anything "on ice" (even Reunite on ice, so nice). I appreciate all the hard work and training that goes into figure skating. It has to be a massive undertaking and people who put that kind of effort into anything deserve recognition for their hard work. Then tack on a hundred pound Jiminy Cricket costume and you have something doubly impressive. I don't, however, care all that much about the fruits of all those labors. I appreciate it, and I'm glad that it exists, and I think it's wonderful that people have the option to perform those kinds of feats and other people enjoy them. I just don't care. To me it's like if NASCAR and basketball had an arctic baby--lots of alternating between going around and around in circles and going back and forth and back and forth, on ice. Just not really my thing, I guess.    But the kids were pretty interested and had a great time. I'm not sure I would say they were mesmerized, but there were certainly times when you couldn't have pried their attention away (well, Norah, anyway--Gabe was easily and consistently distracted by the cotton candy guy every time he walked by). And the bit where all of the Princesses came out with their Princes and went around in circles and then back and forth and back and forth pretty much made her day.    The best part, and another thing I need to document because I think it's adorable, was when Pocahontas came out. First off--kudos to Disney for using both Pocahontas and Mulan, two of their less popular (but more "diverse") princess options.  So props for not going the easy route and sticking with only the white princesses.   Norah's first exposure to most of the princesses was through a compilation DVD that we bought her two Christmases ago. It's a princess sing-a-long DVD, so it has selections from many of the movies from over the years. She still hasn't seen probably half of the princess movies, but she still knows who they are and a song or two about them from the DVD.    So it wasn't really surprising when, as we were scanning over the movie options on Netflix a few months back, when she saw Pocahontas, she said, in a very excited voice, "Oooh! Pocahontas Colors of the Wind!" After a little proving, we discovered that she was convinced that this was not just a song from the movie but the actual name/title of the main character of that movie. So that's what we call her now.    And she got SUPER excited yesterday when Pocahontas Colors of the Wind skated onto the rink. It was pretty cute. Actually, she was pretty cute the entire time.  Of course, she crashed HARD after that, but what can you expect. Both kids did really well while we were there--no fits and they stayed sitting for almost three hours without any real blow-ups or anything. Pretty awesome.   Libby showing the kids the videos on the website of the four different Disney on Ice shows. Norah watched them over and over again for about an hour yesterday before we left. We let them each pick out a single HUGELY overpriced tchotchke. Gabe got a light up sword. He had lost interest in it before we even left the arena. We would have been better off buying him a bag of cotton candy. Live and learn. Waiting for the show to start. I ate most of that bucket of popcorn. My face still feels moisture deprived from all the salt. Norah's memento. Her arms swivel at the elbow. And that's it. For $15. Norah, at least, has set Snow White on the shelf by her bed and will likely keep it around for a good long time. Something purple. The kids watching something purple. This was the "It's a Small World" act, I think. I must be getting too sensitive. Mostly I just wanted to be offended by all of the "ethnic" versions of the song playing while people who were obviously not that ethnicity skated around in preposterous costumes that no real person would ever wear. I kept trying to force myself to not be offended, but every time the song changed geographically, I could feel little bits of my skin crawl. The kids looking out the window. This was my first time in the downtown Arena. I think it's been done for like five years now. I'm pretty far behind the times, usually. Wait, I didn't select this picture, too. Just the earlier one. And I noticed that blogger put these all in different orders, too. Oy. The aftermath. Fortunately, she crashed on the way home. She was a wreck until this point. I like how she's holding Snow White totally upright, and she kept it that way, while sleeping, the entire car ride home. This will almost certainly not go down in her books as one of the most flattering pictures of her childhood.