A MYRIAD OF PIECES

I was looking at my Family Fun magazine this morning while I was eating breakfast. In this month’s issue is a special section called “Toys of the Year” awards - -which basically is showing you some hot toys to purchase for the upcoming Christmas season.

One of the toys featured is called the “Fabulous Fairyland Playset – The Fairy Garden.” In the write up, the reviewer highlights one of its features by saying, “Our testers found that putting together the myriad of pieces of was much fun as playing with the three fairies.” Sorry, but any toy that is described as having a “myriad of pieces” is probably not something that is going to be welcomed into the Hale household with open arms. I find that things that have a “myriad of pieces” end up being scattered from one end of my house to the other, and then parts are subsequently lost, rendering the toy useless. I have tried to keep the toys orgazined - - I have bought brightly colored toy storage and rubbermaid bins galore, as well as worked with the girls repeatedly in an effort to keep the toys in a somewhat semi-organized fashion. Alas, my best efforts to keep Barbies in one container, Little People in a separate container, Legos in another container, etc. are usually thwarted by two little girls who find that pieces and parts from all their toys can be mixed and matched for some new use with whatever they are playing with at the moment. Who am I to stifle their creativity?

And yet - The Fairy Garden will not be under the Christmas tree from Santa this Christmas.

THE LITTLE COMPOSER

Last night, Aleita was being her usual ornery self. She and I had gone several rounds, and she knew she had just about reached the end of her rope. While I was making dinner, she was supposed to be playing in her room, but she continually went into Maggie’s bedroom to pester her instead. Once dinner was finished, I sent Maggie to her room to play until I could get upstairs to give baths. To prevent any further difficulties between Aleita and Maggie, I had Aleita sit in her chair at the table while I did the dishes. She was not particularly pleased that she had to sit at the table while Maggie got to go play, but she did seem to understand that it was a consequence of her earlier behavior before dinner.

As I worked on the dishes, she sat at the table and began to sing, which is frequently the case with Aleita. She often tends to express herself through long, rambling songs. Often times, she will be playing with her dolls or Power Rangers or other action figures in her room and she will have them communicate to one another via warbling operatic verses that she composes as she goes. It is rare that they just speak to one another - - normally, they are all singing. Perhaps we have a little Puccini or Bizet in our midst.

Last night’s composition did not fail to entertain. I thought you might like to hear the highlights (just imagine it sung in a sing-songy, meandering kind of way…) :

I’m sitting here
in my chair.
I want to be
not in my chair.
I’d rather play
in my room
but I have to sit
in my chair.
I am a bad girl
because I’m not a good girl.
If I ran away
no one would come looking for me.
I would go to my Barbie’s house
and stay there because
she wouldn’t make me
sit in my chair…..

*For those who don’t know, Barbie is our good friend who lives a block down the street from us - - Aleita has always referred to her as “her Barbie.” Aleita threatens, on occasion, to go live with “her Barbie” when things aren’t going her way at home. There are moments when I would be inclined to let her - - but I think it wouldn't be long before "her Barbie" would send her right back down the street.

A PERSONAL TOUCH

Do I have any fellow LPRs (license plate readers) out there? When I am stopped in traffic or walking through a parking lot, it seems I am always checking out the tags on license plates. I love people who take the time to come up with clever personalized tags on their vehicles.

It seems that every time I get a new vehicle, I get a new personalized plate. After we got married, I started off cautiously with “R HALE 2” - - I know, how original, right? From there, I went on to “FIDLDD 3.” Now, my plate on my car reads, “HMDNGR 3.”

I love personalized plates because they often show some creativity on the part of the vehicle owner. For the more cautious, initial plates seem to be popular - - the ones that either give the initials of the owner, the married couple, or some combination of the family's initials. For those who are just a freckle braver, the plate may offer a more spelled-out version of the person's first or last name. Sometimes the plates offer a way for the person to advertise their business or company.

Then there are the ones that I just don't get. Have you ever sat in traffic trying to decode a cryptic license plate? I am sure that is what would happen if you would pull up behind my co-worker, Dawn. Her license plates reads, "TTGMLP 2." I will give you a little while to puzzle that one out. Plates like hers surely have meaning to the owner, but for the most part, are lost on the rest of us.

I never understand why people pay the additional money to put the model of their car on their license plate. In Illinois, a personalized plate costs you $7 more per year. Why waste $7 each year just to put "CAMRY 3" on your license plate? What a waste! I can just imagine the owner of that vehicle, sitting at the dealership after purchasing their new car, and becoming increasingly frustrated as they struggle to come up with a clever combination for their new acquisition. Finally, for lack of any better inspiration, they reconcile with the fact that they just can't function creatively under pressure and the moniker for their tags simply states the obvious. If you were to visit these people's homes, would they have a dog named "Dog" and a cat named "Cat?"

Some clever ones that I have seen around town are "IV NAP" for a lady who is an anesthesiologist, "SSSMILE" for a local dentist, and "SAY CHZ" for a photographer. In our former neighborhood, there was a guy who drove a Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder with the tag "ITC BTC." I always liked that one as well.

One thing that I have found that Chris and I often do is begin to refer to people that we see often but don't really know by the tag on their plates if it is personalized. We lived next door to a lady for six years who we never spoke to any more than just "hello" in the yard now and again. We have no idea what her name is - - we just always referred to her as "Roni" when we spoke of her because of her license plate "RONI 93."

So, anyone out there have any license plates that have caught your attention? Please...share!

(and by the way, my co-worker's plate, "TTGMLP 2" stands for "TRY TO GUESS MY LICENSE PLATE.")