After they grew tired of watching TV, John and Amelia willingly went off to play. I proposed a contest between the two kids to see who could come up with the best idea for something fun to do and together they came up with the idea for a dress-up show. Amelia and John even went so far as to say I had to snap pictures of each change of clothing (which I would have done anyway!), so I have the following portfolio to share.
The first set of outfits were based on their Halloween costumes from this year. John added his cowboy guns to the Stormtropper costume and Amelia added extra jewelry to her disco dancing costume.
Amelia: "Mom, take a picture of me posing!"
John: "Mom, I want a shot of me playing too!"
Shortly after the first round John got upset at Amelia over something ridiculous and he stayed back in his room crying and pouting for awhile (yes, I was really getting a lot of work done at this point having to deal with screaming and navigating the fight! Ha, ha). But despite John's childish behavior, Amelia continued on with the dress-up show. Next came her cat costume from two years ago when she was five. And Amelia did the make-up herself as a surprise.
John was still pitching a fit and Amelia came out next as a cowgirl. This was her Halloween costume from when she was six. I can't believe these costumes fit well enough for playing dress up several years later! Notice the bright red lipstick. More make-up, a preview of what was to come next.
After the cowgirl outfit change it was quiet back in the area of the kids' rooms for awhile. I decided to leave them alone and when I finally went to check on them I saw that peace between siblings had been restored.
Amelia and John were on their next outfit change and Amelia was paiting spiders on John's face. The final round of the show is shown below.
The above photo reflects Amelia's ballet costume from two years ago. This was one of my favorite costumes, though this photo doesn't quite do it justice. Below John requested a "Ninja fighting shot!" He said, mom, make sure you get me kicking!"
Close-ups of the made-up faces below. First John, with the spiders and webs painted by Amelia. I have no idea why he had a black nose.
And a close-up shot of Amelia's fine handiwork on her own face. She had bright blue eyelids, rosy pink cheeks that looked like they had been stamped on, red lips, and hair that hadn't been properly combed since the previous morning. Awesome.
As I write this post early on Wednesday afternoon, I have pretty much given in to doing mostly non-work tasks on our remaining snow day (days?). I tried hard yesterday to concentrate on writing up research, but only found myself frustrated by the distractions and endless interruptions. I was grumpy and angry and resentful when really I should not have been. The consequences of this storm are due to the force of nature, and sometimes we just have to make alternate plans when life throws a curveball. I have a mountain of work to do and I feel so much pressure to get it done quickly, but I have to admit that not much is going to happen while we are house-bound. I got out of bed this morning at 5:30 to work on heavy-thinking tasks for a couple of hours before the kids got up, and when moments are quiet I find that I can perform relatively simple tasks such as grading papers or writing a new quiz. But I have decided that for today that will have to be good enough, and in between we can catch up on tasks around the house and enjoy some fun times together.
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