Today’s lesson- the world does not revolve around you. Stop and pay attention to the people and things around you.

Brendan tends to live in his own world and not pay attention to things around him (with the exception of theater, costumes, singing and dancing). He was at school for rehearsal yesterday when teachers found out about the snow day, but didn’t notice. It was on the news, but he didn’t notice.

So Aidan decided to prank him and see how long we could make him think it was a typical school day. He took a shower, got dressed, had his uniform on and was ready to go this morning.

It wasn’t until Aidan came in from shoveling that Bren learned school was canceled.

Lesson learned. Pay attention to things around you.

When the boys were five and seven years old they were Thing One and Thing Two for Halloween.

Fast forward to this month when Brendan was cast as….THING TWO in The Cat in the Hat!

He had a great time learning some new skills including working with a blacklight and synching his choreography with Thing One. They were favorites after the show for little kids to greet.

Each show is a new and fun experience and Brendan especially loves being back at the Calderwood Pavilion where he ran into former cast mates and other theater friends.

For eight years Brendan and I have gone to Disney on Ice. It’s often fallen on or very near to Valentine’s Day, so we’ve called it our Valentine’s Day date. Some years he has dressed up, other years not. This year he decided to go all out. He used his Christmas money to get a new princess dress- Rapunzel (an old favorite going back to his 4th birthday). His newish long blonde wig he decided to style in a side braid and he spent a bit of time on his make up. He looked pretty great. Our routine is that he can choose one special thing. He chose the Rapunzel braid and braided it into his braid.

Our seats were on the floor- the third row. We were a little blocked but it was great to be so close. After intermission we moved to the front row!

I had posted pictures on Facebook of Brendan’s look. A friend saw them and let a coworker who was working the show know. The MC came over to him (the staff has a seating chart) and invited him to sit on the platform on the ice for Beauty and the Beast! How cool?! And seriously, only Brendan. A theater friend saw and got a video too.