Nine-year-old hero

Here are the latest adventures of my creative middle child:

1. Yesterday Mike and I both returned home at the same time to see Kieran with his hair wet. When we asked him how his hair got wet, he told us he took a shower (unlikely!). Then he began spinning a yarn about Chris' friend JD locking himself in the upstairs bathroom and how he propped up the ladder outside of the house to pass a pocket knife to JD in the bathroom so he could get himself out...and would we be mad if this actually happened? Not that it did, of course, he said...but would be mad if it wasn't hypothetical? 

Well, he finally fessed up. They covered up the bushes with a soccer ball net, moved our deck furniture, and propped our extension ladder against the house (IN THE RAIN!). Then he climbed onto the roof and into the window to pass the pocket knife to JD. Ladders scare me to death--I know of two extremely serious ladder accidents, so I kept telling Kieran I wasn't mad but very scared to think of him falling and injuring himself! He is the idea person in the family, and he thinks of this as an adventure. (It was indeed his idea...yes, the nine-year-old saved the day and also highly impressed Chris' friend, JD!) And I was coming home from a massage!!! So much for the stress relief!! I felt slightly better this morning when I quizzed Chris about it, and he told me he was holding the ladder. Chris also told me that during the first 1/2 hour while JD was trapped in the bathroom, JD was serenading him with songs from "Curtains" (the Jesuit High School musical they are both in, opening night!) and Chris continued doing his homework...ever the studious one! (Haha!) Finally he told Kieran what was going on, and Kieran hatched his plan.


2. Kieran's now taking dance three times a week and has finally given us permission to say that he's taking ballet (and jazz, but he prefers ballet). He will be dancing for the first time on stage (as a gnome!) in Portland Festival Ballet's Hansel and Gretel, after he finishes his spring tour with Northwest Children's Theater's Kids Company Northwest (which will begin the week of his birthday, in April). Northwest Children's Theater has become a second home for him! Mike took Kieran and Nicholas to see "Suessical" on Monday (no school), and Kieran enjoyed watching two of his Kids Co friends in the performance...and tomorrow he goes back to see it again with his class.

3. In addition, the film Kieran was in (made by our friend Bayard) will be shown at the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival at the Multnomah County Library (Central Library) screening on Sunday afternoon. Their film is featured on James Kennedy's blog. Kennedy, a writer, runs the 90-Second Newbery contest and hosts fun screenings all over the country. We discovered that he too lived in Japan. We are looking forward to this event and seeing Kieran up on the big screen for the first time, even if it's only a 90-second film!

4. As if he were worried about all the gray hairs he'd given me yesterday, when I said goodnight to him, Kieran told me, "Mom, I love you more than a thousand theaters!" That, my friends, is the highest praise I could hope to get from my little thespian. Worth every gray hair.

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