It was also a time that we acquired a LOT of electronic gadgets that we still use. One of those is a set of plug and play adapters that allow you to remotely turn outlets in your house off and on. You could plug lamps into these outlets all over the house and then turn them all on at one time with the remote. I suppose they would also be really useful if your outlets are located behind furniture-you could still turn things off and on without having to have access to the outlet. However, we have never used the system for those purposes. Nope. In our house we used them to convince our children that they could perform magic!
When we got the tree out this year and the kids saw the lights, they all ran to their room and started yelling about dress up stuff. I was confused as to why they all ran away at the same time, but then they returned to the living room decked out with capes and magic wands. {Note to self: We have a LOT of magic wands at our house.}
When Frances was little, we had the lights plugged into the adapter (truly because the outlet was behind the tree and we didn't want to have to keep climbing back there). Ken told her that if she waved her magic Princess wand at the tree and said the magic words (which at the time were "Bibbity, Bobbity, Boo!") that the lights would turn on. She was fascinated! We had to have the remote in close range at all times in case she tried to test out her skills.
This year she had passed along the story to her brothers who were very excited to try out their magical skills. They started yelling all kinds of incantations at the tree, which of course didn't work because we hadn't even gotten the lights on yet. We convinced the kids to help us get the lights situated before they tried again. We even had to explain that the wands hadn't performed magic in a long time and maybe they should shake them a few times. Then they had to practice which magic words they would use. Some favorites:
Abracadabra!
Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious!
Bibbity Bobbity Boo!
And then my favorite: "Lumos!" We even taught them to say "lumos" to turn the lights on and "nox" to turn them off. It's great when Frances hasn't combed her hair and she looks a bit like Hermione Granger!!
| This isn't Frances, but you see what I mean, right!? |
Benjamin has the typical two-and-a-half year old issues with pronouncing new and big words. And even though "nox" isn't difficult to say, it is unfamiliar. So he says it like something he's heard more often: "knock knock!" Then the kids start telling jokes and rolling on the floor laughing and it takes a while to regroup.
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| "NOX!" |
