a peek inside the fishbowl

ETA: The winner has been chosen. Thanks for your entries everyone!

I’m so excited to be giving away these tickets. I am typing this post faster than you can imagine.

Regular Fishbowl readers already know how I feel about exposing our children to the arts. I truly believe that great music, literature, film, art, and theatre makes kids makes us all better people. And I can tell you from personal experience, kids eat this stuff up. Kids are sponges, ready to absorb whatever you throw at them.

I was excited to see news about The Changeling, a play coming up at the NAC. It’s recommended for families with children age 8 and older. (Ha! Someone at the NAC has the same ideas about kids and culture. How wonderful is that?)

Here’s the description from the NAC website:

The play takes place in a world inhabited by hard working, straightforward farm folk, and mischievous perhaps even malicious trolls. The farm folk have golden hair and pale skin and are all things good; the trolls are ugly and foul and all things evil. But perhaps things aren’t really that black and white? The Changeling is a charming and inventive fairy tale in the tradition of The Brothers’ Grimm – magical and fantastic, with just a hint of horror and a serving of moral reflection.

As a troll mother croons to her baby deep in the woods she hears the approach of humans in a wagon. She hides behind a tree so she can watch the bothersome interlopers in safety, but curiosity gets the better of her, and when she sticks her head out to see the farmer and his wife, she scares the horses who bolt and flee in fright. The farmer’s wife is jolted and drops her angelic infant on the ground. By the time the farmer slows the horses and returns to find the lost baby, it is gone, and in its place is left a troll baby. The farmer’s wife must decide whether to sacrifice everything to raise a baby whom only she can love.

Does that sound great or what? So here’s my question, would you like four tickets for the opening night show on Friday May 8th at 7:00 p.m.?

If you’re keen just let me know in the comments below. You have until midnight Tuesday May 5th to enter (EST) and I’ll do a random draw first thing Wednesday morning. Please make sure you leave a valid email address!

The NAC has generously given our family some tickets too, although for a different night.

If you don’t win the tickets you should know that the 7:00 p.m show on May 7 is pay what you can, otherwise tickets are available at the NAC Box Office or through Ticketmaster at 755-1111.

Over to you. Good luck!

…make ice cubes.

… have you checked your sunscreen supply?

Sarah reminded me the other day. We are all lolling around outside when she suddenly turned over, focused right on my forehead, and asked me about my “white spot.”

Well, that got me started on a bit of a rant about “the thing” my doctor removed from my forehead that “could have been worse but luckily it wasn’t.” And that, of course, lead to a discussion about sunscreens.

I’ve been doing some writing for a local dermatologist and I asked her about it at our last meeting. She told me in no uncertain terms, that the number one way to keep your skin looking healthy and youthful is to use sunscreen EVERY DAY, rain or shine, all year long.

Don’t even think of it as sunscreen, think of it as moisturizer, that way you’ll be less likely to skip it when it’s cloudy outside.

I like to get a fresh tube this time of year. I’ve experimented with a lot of different brands (including some organic/natural ones) and so far there has only one that hasn’t make my face all red and blotchy. It’s Neutrogena UltraSheer. Look for it in the sunscreen section, not in the facial moisturizer section (I tried a Neutrogena moisturizer with an SPF and it irritated my skin). It isn’t tinted, but I find it gives me a really nice colour because somehow it manages to even out my skin tone.

I asked the dermatologist about my brand of choice, and she approved.

Sun spots often appear near the hairline on the forehead, which happens to be the part of my face I never even touched with sunscreen (who wants to get the stuff in their hair?) Since that first scare I have developed a really good Sunscreen Application Technique.

After I shower in the morning I wrap my hair up in a towel. I squeeze out a dime-sized dollop of sunscreen and spread it onto the fingertips of both hands. Starting in the middle of my forehead, I spread outward, going down the sides of my face between my eyes and my hairline (another common area for sunspots) and down to my chin and then I gently sweep across my nose and my cheeks. My whole face gets covered. If there’s any extra sunscreen after I’m done I put it on my upper chest. I wear a lot of V-neck T-shirts and this area is quick to burn.

Here’s the kicker. The sunscreen I was using at the time was SPF 45 (now it’s 30). I asked the dermatologist if I needed to reapply it at some point during the day. She said yes, partway through the day we should be giving ourselves a second application.

This year I finally found what I had so desperately wanted last year and wasn’t able to find: sunscreen in a stick. Ombrelle now makes one and it’s SPF 60. It’s quick to apply and very dry and non-greasy. The girls are great at putting it on their noses and cheeks. I learned long ago that the trick to making the Sunscreen Application Process tolerable for the girls is to find one that is really easy to spread and absorbs quickly. Clear spray sunscreens are great for this, as are the sticks. There have been times when I’ve cheaped out and bought a $9.00 tube of no-name stuff only to find that it spreads as easily as hard butter on cold toast… far from kid-friendly!

I once bought some purple-coloured stuff which was marketed as “FUN FOR KIDS.” I tell ya, there’s nothing fun about rubbing gobs of thick purple sunscreen onto a squirmy kid.

Phew. That’s a lot about sunscreen, isn’t it? Rant over! Any tips, brands, or tricks you’d like to share?