I took the girls to see Disney on Ice tonight.

What can I say? The tickets were free. Back in the day, I could score concert tickets and baseball tickets through work, but now all that’s pretty much gone, except, oddly, Disney on Ice tickets. I can always get those.

So we went. It was pretty bad. When Annabelle was 2 or so, we saw the classic Disney Princesses on Ice, a marketing extravaganza to be sure (what the F are all the princesses doing hanging out together? I don’t get it) but at least that was all contained in one category.

Tonight’s “Disneyland Adventure” was a trainwreck – the set up is that The Incredibles go to Disneyland and wind up having to save it. Painful. There’s no way to make The Incredibles do anything, well, incredible on ice (at least not this cast — many of them kept falling) so all you’re left with is one big product shot for Disneyland. It’s also hard to recreate Disneyland itself on an ice rink in Phoenix.

So I focused on making fun of it — the plot (lame); the costumes (too revealing); the music (trying too hard to appeal to the parents with allegedly hip music, like “Burning Down the House” by the Talking Heads – and whose idea was it to play “I’m Too Sexy” for a group of pre-schoolers, when Mr. Incredible gets his costume?) . You get the idea.

Annabelle, too, seemed pretty lukewarm about the whole thing. Not Sophie. From the beginning, she was all over it. She picked out her Mickey Mouse underpants  (worn backward, of course, so Mickey was in the front) to wear, along with a Disneyland tee shirt, and stayed wide awake, even though it was dark and past her bedtime (who schedules a kid show for 7:30 pm?) and she’s fighting a cold.

As long as Mickey was onstage (and he was quite a bit, though mostly in a “laser cage” waiting to be freed by The Incredibles), Sophie was captivated. She barely asked to use the bathroom. (That’s her trick to get out of anything and everything, these days. You try saying no to a kid who insists she has to poop.)

Sophie’s only complaint was that she didn’t get to hug Mickey, but she didn’t even really seem to mind that. She was just happy to be there, in the presence of Disney. And when I stopped bitching and watched Sophie watch the performance — felt her dance on my lap to the “Pirates of the Caribbean” music — I have to admit that I was happy, too.

Definitely worth the price of admission (heh heh), even if you add in $10 for cotton candy, $6 for popcorn, $4 each for water bottles and $15 to park.

After the show, some Disney employee handed the girls commemorative patches, or what I’d call free advertising. Annabelle tossed hers to me and I shoved it in my purse. When we got home and I opened the car door to get Sophie out, she was snoring loudly, cross-legged in her Converse, clutching her patch. I carefully pried it out of her fingers and left it on the kitchen table, for tomorrow.

Sophie was asleep before the matzoh balls. Annabelle ditched the seder table for the TV shortly after that. I realized I need new dining room chairs when my mother sank into a folding chair, put her chin on the table, and announced she felt like a torso-less head. And we forgot about Elijah.

Still, all in all, a smashing success of a seder, and it turns out that the matzo kugel works just as well if you only have time to dice the apples instead of grating them.

Next year, you’re all invited to Tempe.

For reasons I am not at liberty to share, I’m beginning to wonder whether vodka is kosher for Passover. Potatoes are cool, right?

For those of you less Jewish than I, it’s not just that you can’t eat bread on Passover. There are all sorts of rules about what qualifies as leavened and what doesn’t. It gets really complicated.

In fact, many Jews spend the days leading up to Passover finding, packaging up and getting rid of (or having a friend store) all the leavened food items in the house.

I spent the days leading up to Passover the way I spend the days leading up to any holiday: moving my piles from one Rubbermaid to the other and trying to make the uncontained piles look decorative — like they’re there on purpose.

“Wow,” Ray said this morning. “I wish Passover came every week.”

I did outdo myself by actually sweeping the porch and back patio. I even hosed some stuff off.

I think the dinner tonight will be nice, as long as some plague doesn’t befall my cleaning lady before she can get to my house this afternoon and scour the crap out of it.

But I’m not sure how much fun it will be.

Passover just isn’t that much fun. This was the subject of a spirited discussion at ballet last week. I don’t take ballet, but the girls do and now that Sophie takes a class, too (this was a long time coming; I’ve written about it before) we are at that damn studio from 9 am to 12:30 pm each Saturday. It’s a marathon.

Luckily the morning comes with coffee, shopping (there’s a great thrift store in between the coffee shop and the dance studio), and friends. I’ve known some of these moms and their girls since Annabelle was 3. We’re tight.

Over cofee last Saturday, my friend Betsy told us all about her Passover traditions. She’s a Tucson Jew. For some reason, I’ve always considered Tucson Jews to be more authentic than Phoenix Jews. There’s tightknit Jewish community down there. In Phoenix, everything’s far flung, including the Jews.

Betsy had us tittering with stories of her living room decorated with blue streamers and red Crayoned fish to symbolize the Red Sea. My mother, always one to try to make a holiday happier, chimed in with an idea she read somewhere. You’re supposed to take tiny marshmallows and put them on the blades of a ceiling fan, then turn it on.

“Locusts!” she announced. (My mom always wants to re-enact the plagues in creative ways.)

OK, if you tried to do that in my house, Ray would shit a brick and given my ability to clean up after such messes, I wouldn’t blame him.

I’ll have to frisk my mother for marshmallows tonight. I looked at the web site Betsy forwarded with the fun Passover ideas, and I just couldn’t get in the mood. And really, it’s okay with me if the whole thing isn’t outright raucous fun, but could it at least be a little festive?

Betsy mentioned that Sprinkles cupcakes (yes, designer cupcakes and we got the first outpost after the flagship in Beverly Hills — and they’re really good!) is having a special holiday promotion. They have Easter cupcakes that look like little bunnies, and Passover cupcakes with Jewish stars on them.

Now, Betsy was concerned that the cupcakes aren’t kosher for Passover (turns out they are) but that didn’t occur to me. I was too busy wondering why the Christians get bunny ears instead of crosses, if we Jews have to have big Stars of David atop our allegedly fun desserts.

It’s not fair. My friend Deborah maintains that the Christians steal all the Jews’ best magic and make it more fun. She’s right! Consider Passover. Partway through the seder, you are supposed to open the door for Elijah the Prophet, a mythical figure who sips from the wine you leave him. Is it just the wind? Who knows.

Who cares? Boooooooring. To Deborah’s way of thinking, the Christians took Elijah, put ears on him and gave him some chocolate. Instead of coming in your house and sipping your wine, this version brings you candy and hides eggs.

Much better magic. And with a better color palette.

All this is sacrilege, I know, but I just can’t help myself. Last night I made a list of all the things I thought about doing to make Passover more fun but didn’t have time to do, like making sangria (don’t call AA, it’s just that Passover wine is bad) or  making macaroons from scratch or making a mixed CD of mood music with copies for everyone to take home.

Then I thought maybe I’d make make those centerpieces where you fill a large glass container with candy (like candy corn for Halloween or candy hearts for Valentine’s Day) and then put a smaller container in it with flowers, but I couldn’t come up with a good idea for Passover candy.

Screw it, I thought, I’ll use Easter candy. But I ran out of time.  Instead, last night I dug around in the bottom of the Easter/Passover Rubbermaid and found some dessert plates and napkins with Peeps on them, and some vintage cupcake picks with bunnies, flowers and chicks that will be perfect for the gefilte fish.

In another pile, I did find something really special, something I forgot we had: a matzoh cover that Annabelle made in pre-school. Thank God for the East Valley Jewish Community Center! So we’ll have that on the seder table along with the bunny picks, and I’ll be happy.

I also found some Haggadahs (the seder prayer book) my mom made a few years ago. She managed to pare the service down to about a 10 minute job, and that’s if you drag it out.

So really, I’m set. Sort of. I just need to figure out the cocktail thing. (“Hava tequila?” Deborah asked. “Then we can dance the let my people go go.”)

And tomorrow I can go back to decoupaging eggs.

“Hey, want to see my eggs?” I asked Ray, holding up my three best.

After several hours of trial and error at a friend’s house, I was pretty proud of these, the product of sparkly Mod Podge and several colored paper napkins.

Turns out, Ray does not have a proper appreciation for decoupage. He recoiled.

“Why are they so ugly?” he asked.

I stared at him, then at the eggs. Then back at him.

“Oh,” he said, getting it. “Um, maybe they’ll look better when they dry.”

“They are dry!” I said, rolling them over in my hand. I thought about getting mad, but I had to laugh instead as I headed for my laptop.

“At least I”ll have something to blog about.”

I’m not sure the photo does their ugliness justice. (They were photographed on the stove, next to the kitchen utensils, since there’s not currently a spot on the dining room table — more on that in a moment.) It’s true that the eggs are lumpy and bumpy and mottled. I still think they look kind of cool. Maybe if I showed Ray the rejects for comparison purposes, he’d agree.

The truth is that I suck at decorating eggs. I spend weeks staring at magazines and searching online, then devote one night a year to reminding myself how hopeless it all is. I mean, really, how do they make those eggs in Martha Stewart Living look like that?!

It reminds me I need to do something with martharexia.com, the URL I bought a while back.

The good news is that our kids had a blast making their eggs. Sophie wasn’t so into it, but she did behave, except for one brief episode in which she emerged from the bathroom in just a tee shirt. Luckily my friend has a three year old who sometimes does the same. (She claimed so, at least.) Annabelle made a few nice colored/Crayoned ones, including one for Sophie and one for me.

After last year’s experience trying to wrap lace around eggs then dye them to look just like Martha’s, my friend and I were skeptical. She stared hard at the photos in this spring’s MSL and decided they’re airbrushed. (I felt the same way when I looked at the pictures of Valerie Bertinelli in People magazine a couple weeks ago.)

Maybe we’re just bitter. Speaking of bitter, I’ve got to swap the Easter bonnet for the apron and get to work on the bitter herbs (Manischevitz now makes horseradish with wasabi! Cool!), matzoh bark and everything in between for tomorrow night’s seder. Before that, I”ve got to unearth my dining room table. It’s after 11 pm and I have to work tomorrow. The race is on.

Maybe I’ll try decoupaging a few more eggs first.

Why can’t anyone agree on the spelling of the word matzoh? I’m sure there’s an official, rabbi-blessed version, but it’s either post this recipe or waste time surfing the web. Here’s a recipe I ripped out of Parents magazine in 2004. I’ve made it a couple times, with success, which means it’s foolproof!

Matzoh Toffee Bark

Heat oven to 375. Line a baking pan with foil, and top foil with baking parchment paper. Line bottom of pan evenly with unsalted plain matzoh boards (about 5), cutting extra pieces to fit. (Or breaking them. Have you ever tried to cut matzoh? And really, “board”? Could it sound more unappealing? Sorry — couldn’t resist.)

In a heavy-bottom saucepan, combine 3/4 cup unsalted butter and 3/4 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil. Continue cooking 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and spread mixture over matzoh. Place tray in oven, and immediately reduce heat to 350. Bake 12 minutes.

Remove from oven, and sprinkle with 3/4 cup chocolate chips and 3/4 cup chopped toasted pecans. Place back in oven and bake 3 minutes longer. Let cool, then break into pieces.

(I would post a picture, but I’m just now on my way to the store to get ingredients.)

I just tried to Google the word kugel, and got myself laughing. Go ahead, try saying it 10 times, fast: “google kugel.”

Actually, it sounds like a tasty dish: Googlekugel.

I’m Googling kugel (a casserole — it usually calls for noodles or potatoes, can be sweet or savory) because I can’t find my old friend Eric Taslitz’s recipe for Passover kugel. (His recipe one calls for matzoh — the tasteless unleavened bread Jews eat for eight days once a year in memory of the time the Jews fled Pharoah and didn’t have time to let the bread rise. That’s the Jewish-ish version of the story, anyway.)

I could swear that Passover kugel recipe is in my recipe file, but I dug through it this morning and couldn’t find it.

That doesn’t mean it’s not there. I’ve lost stuff in that file before and found it later. It’s sort of magic. Or I’m sort of a slob. A few months ago, Ray looked up at the kitchen shelf that at the time housed the recipe file and said, “That thing is filthy.”

I took offense, but he was right. My recipe file (a lovely blue and purple Pierre Deux pattern, a college graduation gift from my mother; my sister wrote the recipes for four family favorites, including chili con queso, on construction paper and stuck them inside) is disgusting.

I removed it from the shelf and shoved it in a small Rubbermaid all its own. Problem solved. I did notice a dusty bunny in the bottom of it when I pulled out the contents today, as well as a lot of other stuff. It was a walk down memory lane.

There was Tim Archibald’s recipe for Thanksgiving lentil loaf; Lisa Dropkin’s latkes; Cathy Brown’s Christmas sugar cookies; Todd Grossman’s holiday sangria.

Turns out, I only cook on the holidays. I guess I knew that already, but seeing the evidence there was pretty stunning. I did find Trish’s quiche recipe from the summer Sophie was born (not for a holiday, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never made it), and several recipes for meat loaf and roasted chicken I ripped from magazines but never made.

There are at least three copies of the pumpkin challah recipe I love (Thanksgiving) and two matzoh toffee recipes. (Damn, which is the one that turned out so well a couple years ago?)

There’s a regular kugel recipe from my sister’s mother-in-law, but no Passover kugel. The Passover kugel recipes I found on Google made me a little nauseous, and reminded me of Eric Taslitz’s admonition: YOU MUST GET THE MATZOH WET FIRST.

Maybe I can make do with one less side dish. Or maybe I can track down Eric Taslitz.

Be a clown. Be a clown. All the world loves a clown.

I wonder if even Judy Garland and Gene Kelly bought into that, because I’m pretty sure I’ve never met anyone who actually likes clowns.

Til Sophie. She digs them. Well, not the way Sophie digs stuff and gets all OCD about it. (This morning I slipped and used the term in front of Annabelle, who asked what it stood for. I got vague. She moved onto another topic. Phew. Bad mom.) Sophie just doesn’t mind clowns. Which to me is a big thing.

I wouldn’t call my dislike of clowns a phobia. There are way too many other things I’m more afraid of: fish or anything else “from the sea,” heights, small spaces, seeing a train arrive on the tracks. (Really! The whistle bums me out, too.)  Balloons popping. The dark. Snakes, lizards, bugs or really reptiles of any kind. Mice, rats, or anything furry that’s smaller than a cat.

OK, I’m not too crazy about cats, either.

The fish thing is probably the only bona fide phobia, and even that I’ve learned to keep somewhat under control. I do live in a house with a large tank of fish. But I would never, ever, under any circumstances, touch one — dead or alive. And a tuna fish sandwich is out of the question.

One thing about having kids:  You can never let ‘em see you sweat. The other day my mother told the girls she’s allergic to milk. I snorted. She’s not allergic. She’s just terrified of anything creamy. (Except for ice cream and cheese if it’s on pizza.)

But she’s onto something. I’m going to start feigning allergies.

Like to clowns. Or maybe people.

On Saturday, I brought Sophie to a birthday party with one clown and a whole lot of people I didn’t know. We knew just one family aside from the hosts. That worried me a lot more than the clown, frankly. I think I’m pretty good at hiding it, but in general, I’m almost as afraid of people as I am of fish. No one ever believes that. The other day my boss said, “You’re one of those people who can talk to anyone!”

Maybe, but only under great internal duress. Particularly at parties.

“Did Sophie interact much with the other kids?” Ray asked afterward. I mumbled something and thought, “NO, and I didn’t interact much with the other adults!”

That pretty much left the clown. Sophie and I both focused on the clown for the large part of a Saturday afternoon. 

Luckily, this was a multi-tasking clown.  Sweet Petunia was a pretty good clown, as these things go. She face painted, made balloon animals, performed magic tricks (I’m also a little afraid of magic, but this wasn’t of that calibre), played ring toss games and came with her own music, including the Chicken Dance.  

As we were leaving, the hostess let on that another party guest — another adult, in fact, he runs the criminal division of a very large government operation in town — had admitted earlier in the afternoon that he was afraid of clowns.

I wonder if he’s afraid of people, too. Probably. I think most of us are.

Not Sophie. But that’s a problem for another day.

What started off as sweet this morning turned ugly by this afternoon.

I just listened to a voicemail from Ms. X. Sophie actually made a little boy at school cry today, insisting that he’s not invited to her birthday party.

I can’t believe this. Here I’ve spent all of her life (well, except for the three days before we knew for sure that Sophie had Down syndrome) worrying that my daughter would be excluded from birthday parties and guess what? She’s the one doing the excluding.

She’s a Mean Girl!

I know, I know, developmentally she doesn’t get it and of course I’ve created this monster (as previously admitted) by making such a big f-ing deal out of birthday parties.

Ms. X reported that she had a stern talk with Sophie, but wanted me to know this had happened. (For which I’m grateful.)

But now what? Do I threaten to cancel the birthday party? Ban all birthday party discussion? Refuse to allow her to attend other kids’ parties?

I know I can’t do any of that. I’m waiting to hear back from Ms. X.

Ooops, she just called. Don’t do any of that, she said. It’s just a power thing. Her advice: Have a talk with Sophie — don’t even mention that anything came up at school — and reiterate to her that everyone will be invited to the party. That’s what Ms. X did during their “serious talk” this afternoon, she said, and afterward Sophie told the little boy he could come.

Gee, how nice of Sophie.

I’m still horrified and mortified and all the “fieds” that apply, but as always, I do feel better after talking to Ms. X, who reminded me that Sophie’s not the first kindergartener to do this, and admitted that the whole thing was actually sort of funny.

But still.

This morning began well before 7 with several (unintentionally, I’m sure) sharp kicks to my lower back and a loud announcement.

“It’s April! Then May!”

I rolled over in the bed and followed the script.

“And what happens in May, Sophie?”

“MY BIRFDAY!!!!!!!!!!!”  

I have created a monster.

(Apologies to Sandra Boynton. I love her “Birthday Monsters” board book.)

I blinked and stretched, trying to wake up.

“Vanilla on the inside and chocolate on the outside!”

OK, so we’ve got the cake plan.

To be fair, this is of my doing, as you know if you’ve read this blog much (um, the name might be a giveaway). True, we’ve already got a theme for Annabelle’s party (and her birthday’s in JULY) and yesterday I did book the music guy for Sophie’s “pretend” slumber party.

But really, even I admit that things are getting out of hand. Sometime in the middle of the night, last night, I swear I woke up to the musical stylings of  Sophie — singing the birthday song.

And Ms. X confirms that the birthday mania has spilled into the classroom. Yesterday Sophie told Anyssa to buy her Littlest Pet Shop characters for her birthday. And, Ms. X added, she’s been telling certain kids they can’t come to her party.

Ooooh. Not cool.

“Tell her the entire class will be invited!” I told Ms. X. Oh yes, she said, she has been. But, she reports, Sophie says she doesn’t want Aiden to come because Shawn and Aiden argue all the time.

We both had to admit that’s sort of sweet. But everyone in the class will be invited. And then some. (This could be a logistical nightmare, I realize. Our house is not that big.)

Hey, you only turn 6 once.

And now for some spring fashions. Speaking of Aiden from Sophie’s class, yesterday we were driving to school and the topic of Aiden’s new haircut came up. The kid showed up this week with a full-on mohawk — head shaved completely except for a dinosaur-esque ridge on top.

“What do you think of Aiden’s mohawk, Sophie?” I asked, trying not to let my own position show.

The answer came back loud and clear.

“I don’t like it.”

Hmmph. Very strong in her opinions. I’m finding that more and more when it’s time to get dressed in the morning. Annabelle will pretty much wear whatever you toss at her (unless it’s a special occasion or the fashion bug bites extra hard) but Sophie wants choices and more and more, she rejects the offerings.

The good news is that we have a near-unlimited supply of clothes, particularly for her since she’s smaller. I’m not sure where some of this stuff originated, like the Old Navy “Queen Bee” tee shirt. It’s absolultely adorable, but no way could I ever have put Annabelle in it. When Sophie pulls the Mean Girl thing, everyone thinks it’s cute; she has an excuse. (Although the way this birthday thing is going, I might have to hide the tee shirt.) Not so much with the other girls, which does make me wonder who handed this shirt down — and did their daughter wear it much?

Then there are shoes. Sophie’s getting pickier there, too. The other day we realized that Annabelle’s old brown Converse fit her. So the girls were shoe twins at school.

We were all delighted and I got a little nostalgic. Years ago, when Sophie first had orthotics and I was fighting the clunky white sneaker look, my dear friend Trish suggested Converse.

“Brilliant!” I yelled, right there in the middle of the Nordstrom shoe department, and we procured a pair in hot pink — only to have Dorcas the Physical Therapist reject them as unsteady.

The brown fit nicely. (Hopefully they’ll fit with the new orthotics that are now ready to be fitted — Dorcas convinced the guy to make the shoe inserts.)

So I’ve created a birthday monster and a fashion monster and, I realized this morning, a book monster.

I was getting Sophie out of the car seat when I noticed blood on her lip. Turns out it was coming from her thumb. She’d managed to give herself two paper cuts, just on the way to school, from a “Snow White” book she grabbed on her way out the door.

She got a little blood on her favorite Dan Zanes tee shirt before I could stop her from wiping her fingers on it, then we stopped at the nurse’s office and laid in a supply of Band Aids before it was time for drop off.

A long, monstery morning.