Unplugged - Soft

I guess this week's project is about as close to a failure as we've come while doing our Unplugged Projects. The theme was soft, and I immediately thought of the soft insect puppets I found at a Labor Day weekend garage sale up north. What a bonus...another unintentional "link-em" week, where I combine two themes in one (last week we did cylinder insects).

I've been intending to get E excited over her puppets...they're so much fun and just beg for "unplugged" time. So over the past few nights I've been writing my first puppet play, using a frog, a dragonfly, and a blue morpho butterfly. When E is a little older, I'll help her write a play too...I used to help my nieces and nephews write scripts and then video tape them acting them out. I am so proud of my play...it's cute, it's corny, it has props and involves throwing candy at the audience. This is the first time I've written actual lines instead of ad-libbing dialogue between E's many puppets. And tonight was to be the debut, until "the problem." While gathering the props and deciding on a venue (back of the couch, behind the kitchen table), I couldn't find the dang puppets. Further investigation revealed what I had feared...I left the puppets up North at the cottage. Oy.

I was ready to call it quits, but M was a trooper, and suggested that I substitute other animals, and go on with the show. Okay, well, the frog became a lion, the dragonfly became an elephant, and Seniorita Morpho became Seniorita Big Chicken. She was, after all, bigger than the elephant and lion combined.

My audience listened intently, M laughed at my corny jokes, and they appropriately surprised when I threw a Ziploc bag of M&M's at them during the pinata scene. After I was through, E said, "More puppet show, Mommy." I'll take that as a good sign. Apparently the plot made sense to her, Costa-Rican-beans-and-rice-eating chicken and all.