Beethoven and Barbie

The girls' latest movie obsession is "Barbie: Pegasus," in which an ice-skating princess and her sister-turned-Pegasus are reunited to battle the evil sorcerer who has been wreaking havoc on the kingdom for years. The thing I like about this movie is that the background music consists mainly of excerpts from Beethoven's "Pastoral" Symphony, which just happens to be one of my favorites. There is a big elaborate ice-skating scene which is set to the symphony's third movement, a minuet, and the main theme music that recurs throughout the movie is the symphony's first movement. Yesterday, after the movie finished, I wordlessly popped my CD of the "Pastoral" Symphony into the CD player and let the music begin.

"MAMA!" Julia cried, incredulous. "You have the music to this??"

Hearing this music was the perfect stimulus to trigger gallop time. Madeleine joined in as well, although when the minuet movement began, she must have remembered the ice-skating scene in the movie, because next thing I knew, she was sliding her body around in circles, wearing tap shoes, telling me to watch her skate. You can all probably imagine the end result of Madeleine twirling in crooked circles on the hardwood floor wearing slippery tap shoes. Happily, she is the type to laugh over her wipe-outs rather than get dramatic. Unhappily, this made her want to recreate her wipe-outs over and over again to amuse us.

Today Madeleine is much calmer, and has been amusing herself with pretend play rather than violently throwing her body to the ground. Unicornio, Dora and Diego were up to their usual antics, ready to go on some really exciting adventures:


UNICORNIO: Hang on, guys. I'll be right back. I forgot my bagel.
MADELEINE: (holding a chocolate chip bagel bite to Unicornio's mouth) Here you go, Unicornio!
UNICORNIO: fake smacking and eating sounds
DORA: (to Diego) HEY! What you doing, OLD FELLA?
DIEGO: I'm going to the Sudbury Farms so I can do it.

This was followed by some incidental music, sung by Madeleine. "Dun dun da da da, dun dun da!"

DORA: (to Diego) HEY! WHAT YOU DOING, OLD FELLA!
DIEGO: (silence)

Incidental music, once again. "Dun dun da da da, dun dun da!"

Madeleine suddenly lost interest in taking Diego to the Sudbury farms as she spied her "Hello Kitty" coloring book. As she began coloring one of the figures with a black marker, she began pretend talking her coloring book friends.

HELLO KITTY: Waaa Haaaa Haaaa Haaaa! I'm just stuck in the BLACK!
MADELEINE: (to Hello Kitty) Stuck in the black??

I guess she didn't feel any sympathy for her prisoner, because she studiously continued coloring every detail of the Hello Kitty figure black.

When she had finished coloring, she announced to me:
"Look it! Look at her GRANDFATHER!"

Whether Hello Kitty became a grandfather when she turned into a black cat, or whether Madeleine was pretending she was a grandfather all along is a mystery to me.

I wonder how Diego's doing at the Sudbury Farms. I could have used a little resolution on that riveting adventure.