If You Buy a Kid a Ticket

THEY WILL GO TO THE THEATER: CJ & Annabelle have had today duly noted on their calendar for weeks now. They had tickets to attend the play "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" at the Seattle Children's Theatre. The play is based on a book of the same title, which was based on another book, "If You Give a Moose a Cookie," which spawned a whole if you give a ... a ... series of books by author Laura Numeroff.

In preparation for tonight, we reviewed a number of titles in the series today. We read along as Robbie Benson narrated "If You Give a Moose a Muffin." We watched Michelle Obama and her mother read "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie," As well as "If You Take a Mouse to School," "If You Give a Pig a Pancake."

We also found footage from a rehearsal of the Seattle Children's Theatre Mouse/Cookie production. The kids watched it and laughed uproariously.

Tonight, Christian took them to the show and said they laughed right through it, too. After they show, they got to meet the cast and even got their programs autographed by the star of the show (the mouse)!

They each got to ask him a question. CJ asked him how he got the gum stuck behind his ear (A: It isn't real gum - it was made of sponges) and Annabelle asked him why did he pile boxes on top of each other to make steps (A: to get on top of the refrigerator).

TIME AFTER TIME: I was researching some math sites this morning and CJ spied one over my shoulder and basically begged to play it right away. I was happy to oblige. ;)

In the "Stop the Clock" game, five analog clock faces are shown, and below them are five digital clock faces. The player tries to match the times as quickly as possible. The kids did pretty well. In fact, they got them all right and kept getting faster at it. They had no trouble counting by 5s for the minute hand.

OUT AND ABOUT: P.E. today was on the playground at Catherine Blaine Elementary in Magnolia Village. It's where, under the new school assignment plan, CJ and Annabelle would be placed if/when they ever enroll in Seattle Public Schools again. We attended an Open House there last year just out of curiosity. We'll likely go to their open house again this winter, just out of curiosity. ... Even if our kids aren't going there, it certainly doesn't hurt to know what's going on at the neighborhood school.

TOUCHDOWN!: The kids actually slept past 7 a.m. this morning, so we watched a replay of space shuttle Atlantis land and post mission interview with the astronauts. It's the first time the kids have followed a mission from launch to landing.

Image above: Space shuttle Atlantis lands on runway 33 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:44 a.m. EST. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett