Don't Mess With the Poppins -and- Defeating Lulu

A couple weekends ago, when Grace was spending some quality time with my parents, she was introduced to one of my all-time favorite movies: "Mary Poppins". She came home talking about the movie with the "pahck" (this totally cracks me up--she picked up on how the word "park" is pronounced in the movie, complete with the Cockney accent, and now this is her new funny) and the amazing merry-go-round horses that come off of the carousel and go galloping in the countryside. She loved the movie and couldn't wait to tell me all about it.

This was so exciting to me. "Mary Poppins" was one of my favorite movies as a child (and even as an adult), so knowing that Grace found it entertaining as well made me very happy. So naturally, I was really looking forward to the time when Grace and I could sit down together and watch it and talk about how cool everything was, and how Mama secretly has always wanted to be Mary Poppins herself. The only bad thing about all of this was that the only version of "Mary Poppins" that owned by my family is a grainy, VHS version that my parents taped when we had a free week of the Disney Channel like 20 years ago. Aside from being crappy in quality, our family's version of "Mary Poppins" also contains the annoying "To subscribe, please call 1-800-......." flashing across the bottom of the screen every few minutes.

So Aaron, being the thoughtful guy that he is, picked up a brand spanking new version of "Mary Poppins" at Best Buy a few days ago, and it has been playing nearly non-stop in our home since then. I have been able to finally watch one of my favorite flicks with my kid, and the whole experience has been totally wonderful.

Except for one glitch...tonight, while we were watching one of my favorite parts of the movie (the part where Mary and Bert and the children jump into the chalk drawing of the English countryside) I made the fatal error of singing along with "Jolly Holiday with Mary". Whoa. Big mistake. Grace looked at me with a face full of disgust and horror and said, "You don't sing with Mary Poppins, Mama. Now we have to start the song over. You don't sing again." And, she made me start the scene over again and promise her that I would NOT under any circumstances sing along with this song ever, ever again. I actually laughed out loud at how mad she got, and she immediately silenced me by saying with a furrowed brow, "I am not laughing."

Ok. Duly noted. Don't mess with the Poppins, especially if you want to finish the movie in under three hours.

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Tonight, instead of following our normal Friday night ritual of dragging an already-exhausted and cranky Grace out to dinner and inevitably ending the evening with at least one of us in frustrated tears, we decided to stay home and attempt to duplicate one of my favorite restaurant meals--chipotle chicken pitas with kettle chips and blue cheese sauce from Cafe Lulu. Mmmmmmmmmm. Aaron bought all of the ingredients on his way home from work tonight, and we eagerly set out to try and make the meal ourselves.

And we TOTALLY succeeded. Our kettle chips were way better than Lulu's...sometimes Lulu's chips have a slightly burned flavor to them, but ours, with Aaron gingerly tending to them as they bubbled along in the canola oil, turned out perfectly. And my version of the black bean salsa that is used to make the chipotle chicken pita was spot on, only missing a dash of lime juice and perhaps tasting a tad bit too salty.

All in all, it was a great meal, and the best part of it was that we enjoyed it in the comforts of our own dining room. And instead of ending the night wishing that we hadn't gone out at all, I am enjoying listening to Aaron and Grace putting together a puzzle and making up a song that goes, "We don't need that piece, UH!" I love staying home. I think we'll make it a Friday night tradition.