Sheild of Faith…ful tongue!
in the "only my daughter" category: When at church with Nana, they’ve been making the "Armour of Christ" and today they made the "Shield of faith" – please note the pattern on the shield…
….a happy face sticking it’s tongue out.
I know, right? Only my kid! Man, she makes me laugh…
From Strangers to Stars! CYD Winners!
I called it! Or well, I hoped really, really hard and while I was sad to see Joey and Rory bobble in their last and most important performance, I couldn’t have been happier to see a final two between Brownell and Richie against Caitlin and Will! We all know who my favorites have been since they sang together the first time, and to see Caitlin and Will hit it out of the park in those last two shows? BOOYAH!
It was close, Brownell and Richie put in a good show too, but no one can deny the powerhouse voice that Caitlin has, and Will has improved and gotten so confident and the blend is SO GOOD – I swear you don’t expect that voice to come out of such a teddybear! It was just fantastic to see the underdogs pull out the win over the pretty boys. They sang “Stupid boy” and then their new single “Love is” that will be released by Sony – as Will said “We’re gonna work our hardest to make buttloads of money for Sony since they gave us this song!” Ha!
Congrats to Will and Caitlin – and to the judges for doing it right. *grin*
As soon as youtube gets videos up of their performances, I’ll get them up for you too. Until then, you can catch all the finale performances here at CMT.
Here’s Caitlin and Will performing “Never loved at all” in the next to last episode – their first love song of the competition (by design – they wanted to wait till the right time.. clearly this was it!) and man they knocked it out of the park!
And here’s they’re new single, Love is.
SYTYCD – top 20.
I find it very hard to write about something so visual, a show that’s dependent on personal opinion – you either get it, or you don’t. Fortunately for the top 20 this year and their performances, I got it more often then not. I’ve always wished I could dance, and seeing some of those routines Wednesday night made me wish I was 20 years younger.
The creme de le creme, of course, was Katee and Joshuah and their slow hiphop routine to Jordan Sparks “no air”. Even if they hadn’t mentioned the ‘night before he leaves for war’ connection, I still would have gotten it. And it hit me in the chest and sucked all the air from my lungs and the self-proclaimed ‘crybabies’ brought tears to my eyes. I ADORE routines that can make me feel like that through a television screen. Nigel’s words right after – the very soft spoken “that was really really good” echoed exactly what I was feeling. Just… wow.
(don’t know how long the vid will be up. Seems Fox is being a bit of a bear about youtube and they don’t post any damn vids on the site either so whatever – watch it while you can!)
I also liked Mia Michael’s piece, danced by Chelsea H and Mark. Mia can be such a bitch, but her work is amazing, she never fails to get some sort of reaction – usually good.
I think everyone did a fantastic job, and the first cut indeed cut the deepest, as it was hard to choose who should go. In the end, after Kourtni, Jessica, Rayven, William, Matt and Jamie danced solos in their style, the judges sent Rayven and Jamie home.
So I been thinkin…
..always dangerous, right? But you know how it is – on a random hop around the blogasphere, you stumble over a little comment that sticks in your craw and you mull over it and then think you’ve forgotten all about it but then it keeps on popping back up at odd times and you just wonder why about the whole blasted thing and hello get out of my head already?! So yeah – I had one of those moments, so I’m just gonna write about it. We’ll see how many haters this pulls out of the woodworks. Hee.
So, I was wandering around and random linkhopping as I’ve been known to do, and saw a picture of a waterslide with the comment “The waterslide of death. Obviously my children haven’t been on it.”
Our local water slide
I know, such a random thing to stick with me, especially as I’m not fond of waterslides myself, having a fear of heights and a severe dislike of getting my face splashed/wet. (I know, I’m weird.) But I couldn’t help but wonder why it was so ‘obvious’ that the kids hadn’t been on it. The slide looked a lot more innocent then ours does around here, and I couldn’t keep my kids off it if I tried. (For the record, I haven’t tried, either. Heh.) It’s built according to safety codes, and there’s a lifeguard at the top, plus the ones at pool itself to assure further safety of the kids and so on and so forth. I’ve never worried about them going down it, even as I refuse to do so myself and no amount of convincing can make me climb those stairs to fling myself into a watery grave of doom at all nu uh no way slide.
Point being – I refuse to impose MY fears on my kids. Does that mean I’m going to let them play with knives and fire and jump off bridges and cliffs? No, because that would be stupid. However, I won’t hold them back from something they want to try either, simply because I’m too scared to try it myself.* I don’t want anything to stand in the way of something they want to do – within reason of course – see the cliff, and driving at the age of 5 or dating before they’re 87 years old.
So I began to wonder a wonder that I’ve wondered before – what the hell is with us and coddling our kids so much nowdays? I mean seriously, we’ve gone so far into the OMG MAH PRESHUSH BB DONT HURT DERE WIDDLE FEELINGS mode of thinking that it seems there’s a great deal of wimpy pushovers and terrified kids running around scared of expanding beyond their little bubbles of “MOMMY SAVE ME”. Am I the only one who thinks this does not bode well for the next group of national leaders that we’re raising?
Now, I’m not saying that common sense shouldn’t reign, but we have to give our kids room to fail, else they will never learn anything – whether it be the thrill of sliding down to a watery tomb of death splash zone set aside for such rides, or dueling with swords, or driving before they’re we’re ready, or dating before they’re we’re ready or riding their bike around the block, or into town with an older sibling, or playing a sport and learning that NOT EVERYONE WINS and sometimes your kid will NOT be the BEST at everything…
If we convince them that they’re better without doing the work, or trying, or that everyone is the same, what good reason can we give our kids to strive to better themselves through their lives? How can we possibly expect them to reach and strive for their full potential, if we’ve coddled them into believing that what they are is all they can be? I fear that a whole bunch of people out there are coddling their kids into self-important delusions of grandeur, while pointing fingers at those of us who aren’t and calling us the bad guys and horrible parents.
It’s not about mommy wars, either. It’s about raising decent human beings that can fend for themselves, instead of reclusive little twerps that we can’t get out of our basement because THE SUN! IT MIGHT BURN MAH PRESHUSH SKIN and mommy I don’t WANNA go on the SLIDE don’t make me!
Ahem.
I don’t really have much of a point beyond the wondering why and how and even a bit if I am doing it all wrong myself. But then I get a look at the smile on my kids faces, I hear the way they talk with their friends, and I see that while they have no fear, they have as much common sense as I can pack into their little blond heads – and I know I’m doing OK.
Sure, you may think differently, and I suppose that’s OK, too as they’re your kids. Just remember, that no – it’s not obvious why your kids haven’t gone down that slide and mine are rushing for ride number 2730129381292. But in the end, I promise not to snicker as my kids rescue your kids from your basement someday.
At least, not too much.
Ok, how about not out loud.
That’s the least I can do.
*Please note that my fears are in no way a result of my parents’ raising me fearfully. I discovered them all on my own, because they allowed me to explore and learn my likes and dislikes all by myself while standing patiently by ready to rescue me when I needed it – just as I do my own kids. And you know, I never did touch that stove after it burned me the first time…
Top Chef: We have a winner!
Being part two of the finale, there’s no quickfire, there’s just a jump right into the final competition – four course meals for 9 people, following the traditional steps: Appetizer, fish, red meat, and desert. Padma and Tom introduce the big wigs – April Bloomfield, Dan Barber and Eric Ripert. They’ll each be acting as sous chef for the contestants, and have their own tray of proteins that the chefs that choose them will have to use. Stephanie and Richard are tied for the most wins, so they draw knives to see who picks their sous chef first, and Stephanie pulls number one. She picks Ripert, Richard picks Barber and Lisa works with Bloomfield.
Lisa is awfully chipper, and it’s kinda weirding me out. She’s all positive and light-hearted, while the other two are all business and nerves, and I’m not sure I can handle a happy cheerful Lisa after weeks of her bitchy pout…
So the sous chefs help prep for the first day, but the next day Tom delivers the bad news – they are on their on, to live or die by their own hand. Lisa maintains her cheerful confidence while Stephanie worries as usual, and Richard looks stressed and out of his depth – he even snaps a little at Tom so we know it’s not going well. Service starts, and I get more nervous by the minute because of all the praise Lisa is getting – she can’t win this, right? Not with her performance all the way through and getting there by the skin of her teeth? I mean, she just CANT right?!
The first course seems split between lisa and Stephanie. Second course is a clear Lisa win, Stephanie’s third course has everyone raving. Richard’s best dish was his desert, even though we’ve seen it twice before. At the judges table, Richard says he choked, while Lisa is confident and Stephanie is nervous. The judges deliberate for a really long time – they mention hearing the early morning birds sounding outside – and finally award the prize to…
STEPHANIE! (whew!) She wins for having the meal the judges would most like to have again, and we get our first female Top Chef. Hurray!
