In Which I Solve EVEN MORE Problems

by | Jul 18, 2014 | 7 Quick Takes | 32 comments

The world is full of real problems. But since I’ve got nothing to offer for those except my prayers, (and who could do more than that, right?) I’m going to solve some significantly less important problems for ya. I’ve done it before. I’ll probably do it again.

1. PROBLEM: Last summer I threw a bit of a hissy fit over that one terrible, horrible, no good, very bad song. You agreed with me, really you did, but you just found the tune really, REALLY catchy, and no matter how you tried you just couldn’t stop humming it.

PROBLEM SOLVED
Problem solved by “Weird Al” Yankovic by combining five of my all time favorite things: grammar, graphic word art, cheesy pop music, “Weird Al” Yankovic, and GRAMMAR. Now you can sing along. Out loud. In front of your kids.

2. PROBLEM: People hate children.

Seriously, they do. I had no idea.

Haley wrote an excellent follow up piece to her post about her regrets about not inviting children to her wedding. This one was addressing the push for child-free zones, and pointing out that children are just small humans, and, “Unfortunately, humans are inconvenient. But it doesn’t make them any less worthwhile.”

She, and I, and all people who don’t hang out in the deepest dankest corners of the internet were surprised when her post was shared on anti-child message boards.

Not boards for people who have chosen not to have children. Not all people are meant to have children. That’s a discernment you’re allowed to make. These are boards for people who pretty much think children should not be suffered to exist.

Do these people maybe really NOT know how wonderful children are and how much we love them and their messes and their sticky inconvenient selves?

PROBLEM SOLVED

I need to figure out a way to introduce all those super-creepy misguided people to Lulu. In pigtails. Preferably in person, so she can smile at them. But *I* don’t really want to meet them. But we’re kind of a team-package, at this point. So, I’ll admit, there are still some details to work out. But I think it would work.

On the off chance I can’t swing the introducing the message board weirdos to my daughter thing . . . maybe  I’ll just try to share the positive things about parenthood too. Just to even things out.

Note: I’ve reworded the above take to prevent confusion and more accurately reflect my opinion.

3. PROBLEM: You wanted to download the St. Michael prayer, but you couldn’t. Also, you didn’t mention it, because you were trying to be polite, but you noticed that it might be missing a kind of important line.

PROBLEM SOLVED
I made a new one. This time it’s downloadable AND has all of the words. You’re welcome.
P.S. I’ll do another round of them sometime in the future, so please feel free to make requests.
4. PROBLEM: The plot of Frozen doesn’t make sense.
Okay. I KNOW. I’m sorry. I’m TRYING to just stop with Frozen. 
But if you were a person who is a writer and a reader and a known problem-fixer and all day long your children sang songs from a show that doesn’t make sense, but could have. And if you threw a whole birthday party based on this movie. And if you just had to watch it FOR THE THIRD TIME. And if you had now listened to the second disc of the soundtrack (many times), containing the demos of outtake songs that explained many (but not all) of the plot holes . . . 
Maybe you wouldn’t be able to let it go either. (Huh? See what I did there?)
Anyway, I’ve linked to Amanda’s take on Frozen and Tangled before, but here it is again, because she’s right. 
PROBLEM SOLVED
And here’s how I would fix Frozen.
  • We NEED the prophecy. The whole movie doesn’t make sense without it. The trolls, Elsa’s powers, all of it is explained by the “ancient troll prophecy” we hear about in the outtakes. The ice cutting scene is lovely, but don’t help the plot at all. Put the prophecy back in.
  • Hans and Anna’s love song is absolutely adorable and yet it’s all a terrible lie. Which really ruins the song. The whole flipping of his character is the worst piece of writing I’ve seen in a long time. All I can figure is that they changed the ending after his early scenes had already been executed, because there is NO foreshadowing.
  • BUT they want the act of true love to be sisterly and they want to make a statement about the whole “teenaged Disney princesses run off and marry men they just met” thing. Great. We can do that. Hans kisses her and, IT DOESN’T WORK. Not because he’s secretly, psychopathic-ly, to his own detriment-ly evil, but because it can’t be “true love,” YET. It doesn’t work, Anna is confused and heartbroken, runs off, saves Elsa from something (not Hans), that thaws her heart and breaks the curse. We have a quick moment in which someone, probably a troll, explains that it didn’t work because Hans and Anna need to get to know each other and give their love at first sight time to grow and mature into true love.
  • Then, like Heather suggests, Elsa and Kristoff can make eyes at each other and then there’ll be TWO weddings in the sequel. 

5. PROBLEM: (also Frozen-related, gah!) Your children won’t stop listening to/singing the Frozen soundtrack.
PROBLEM SOLVED
Fight fire with fire.
If we’re going to have near-constant singing of show tunes, we’re at least going to have some variety. So the girls have also been learning all the lyrics to:
So . . . that’s better?

6. PROBLEM: You wanted a once-and-for-all ruling from the bishops on whether the Girl Scouts are officially incompatible with Catholic faith and values.

PROBLEM SOLVED/NOT-SOLVED
That’s mostly not how our Church works. The Catholic Church has a reputation of being pretty bossy. But that’s true in only a handful of very specific areas of Church teaching, the so-called “non-negotiables.”
On most other issues, we are trusted to consult our local priests and bishops and our own properly informed consciences to make decisions. That’s where the bishops have left it this time.
Given what I know about Girl Scouting, and given the other options available to us (like the Little Flowers Girls’ Club I host) I am very comfortable in our decision to eschew the Girl Scouts. But other people in other situations may, with the permission of the bishops, decide differently.
Here’s my take on Boy and Girl Scouts:

BOY SCOUTS AND GIRL SCOUTS: A DIFFERENCE IN KIND NOT JUST IN DEGREE

7. PROBLEM: As a former teenaged girl (I’m assuming this applies to most of my readers) you love that toe-tapping, heart-melting, rebelliously romantic song that’s inescapable this summer.

But the current, mother of children you (again, I’m thinking this is most of you) just can’t put your finger on the problem you have with the song.
PROBLEM SOLVED
This guy knows what the problem is. It’s that Dad mostly likely has a pretty good reason for being rude to whiny, skinny jeans, beanie guy. Although I do hope he’s not actually going to kill him. I can’t support that.

32 Comments

  1. jeannemp

    I just had to comment because…I have the same basic "fixes" for Frozen, which I have discussed ad nauseam with anyone who will listen! Why weren't we in the test audience for this film? It all could have gone so much better. Also, we too bought Annie and the Sound of Music soundtracks (and Music Man, gotta have Music Man, great for boys to get in on the sing-along action!) to counteract the constant All Frozen, All the Time. Obviously, we Catholic homeschooling moms of many think great thoughts!

    • Kendra

      Music Man! Yes, of course. We're going to need that one too!

    • Karyn

      My kids like Oklahoma, too. Or maybe I just think they like it because I want them to like it because I was in the play when I was ten. No Frozen in my house because we don't watch movies until they're on Amazon Prime or free at the library – and by then, they're usually no longer popular.

  2. Christine

    I have never been more excited about any song than I was when I heard Weird Al's Grammar song. I love the music to the original version, but that guy's songs are not allowed in our house. To have Weird All give me not only a version I can dance to, but to make it about GRAMMAR made my heart dance and sing, too.

  3. Anonymous

    I might be the most awful father on the face of the Earth, but none of my kids have seen Frozen, and the only Frozen song we heard involved Jimmy Fallon and kindergarten instruments. I always assumed that the story followed The Snow Queen, but my sister now tells me it has hardly anything to do with the Andersen tale?

    I am so glad I only listen to certain stations. I don't think I've ever heard the songs you posted last year or this!

  4. Cam Wollner

    One thing that made me instantly love (okay almost bawl like a baby) during Frozen was that my then five year old took the whole entire story line to be about how her little sister who's autistic locks herself away sometimes (and gets into trouble). Her point of view pretty much made it impossible for me to have a dry eye the first three times I saw it… So having a kids personal interpretation about what they think it's about can totally make a movie awesome (at least for me!). And I totally smiled when I saw the next two musicals as the fix because yesterday she was dancing at the top of the stairs singing It's a Hard Knock Life!

    • Adrie Little

      Best. Comment. Ever.

      And how incredibly wonderful of your daughter to find such an amazing meaning to the movie. Tearing up over here. Blessings to you and your family!

  5. Elizabeth@SuperSwellTimes

    I tried the Girl Scouts and hated the experience, so I was already concerned that I'd end up with super-scouty progeny. Now it looks like I have a reason to deny their scouting instincts — which is a-okay by me.

  6. Charlotte (WaltzingM)

    That Rude cover cracked me up. Had never heard the original, but loved the Dad's version (provided he's not actually advocating murder, or course). Don't forget Singing in the Rain! And if you are still taking requests, there is a little prayer we add to the end of our mealtime prayer that goes like this:

    Send forth, O Lord, laborers into thy harvest. Lord, grant unto thy church saintly priests and fervent religious. Amen. We've been praying that prayer three times a day for the past 10 years at least and my kids noticed the other day that the number of priests at our Cistercian Abbey has almost doubled in that time. I'm not saying that's all because of our prayers, but it was awesome for them to make that connection.

    • Charlotte (WaltzingM)

      Hmmmm… the prayer was supposed to be italicized to set it apart from the rest of my comment. But I'm sure you can figure it out.

  7. Mary

    I like your Frozen fix! I definitely think Anna belongs with Kristoff, though. He and Elsa wouldn't work out too well, because they have the same tendency to withdraw from life and people. Hans, however would have potential as already having proven himself at taking good care of the kingdom to be a good match for the queen. I would have had him stop Weaseltown's assassination plot at great personal risk, in case in wasn't apparent enough. All of this would be worked out in the sequel (because there absolutely will be one) by the trolls in Midsummer Night's Dream fashion. Olaf and Sven could make a hapless Puck-like plot moving team, don't you think?

  8. Patty

    Kendra, these printable are so gorgeous!! I think I am going to use this one in a gallery wall in our apartment…keep up the great work!!

  9. Renee

    Why do people hate children?

    In an effort to reduce teen pregnancy, they taught us in sex ed that children RUIN your life.

    These are the long lasting results.

    • Kendra

      Wow, Renee. That is crazy insightful. I think you're right.

  10. Team Frowow

    Lol! Yesterday my two year old was watching Frozen so I could fix dinner (it was that kind of day) and halfway through Let it Go I couldn't take it anymore and busted out with "We'd like to thank you Herbert Hoover" from Annie. I have no idea where that song came from, but I sang it. Loud. It helps.

  11. Nanacamille

    I love all of those old Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals. We saw them in summer Theatre and your sister Kara starred as the Music Man and Miss Hannigan in the 6th grade.

  12. Julie

    You have absolutely made my day with the word crimes video I can't stop tapping my toe. I love the beat but hated the song, now I have the best of both. Thanks!

    • Julie

      I should have watched all the videos before commenting. The Problem Solved video, I almost died with the mom with her laundry in the background singing along. If you haven't watched these..please do!!!

  13. Kristin Sanders

    I loved all of these, especially the grammar video, and even more so, the dad's Rude song! I was thinking the same thing when I first heard the song on the radio…the dad was probably right! hahaha thanks for posting! 🙂

  14. Heather M

    Okay, I finally have to comment and say that there IS some foreshadowing regarding Hans. When you've watched it about, oh a dozen times in a week, you notice. (Get these songs out of my head).

    • Charlotte {WaltzingM}

      I agree. It's subtle… very subtle. Like only there after you've seen it and you go back and look for it subtle.

  15. Gina Fensterer

    Hehe, this was fun! #1–I love Weird Al's version, so fun!
    #4-Yeah, I don't get Frozen.
    #5-We are listening to all kinds of movie music this summer, thanks to Pandora. I think I should actually invest in a few good soundtracks, though.

  16. Emily Barnes

    Well, if you're taking requests for prayer ideas, can I throw the Guardian Angel prayer into the mix? It is a prayer that has become very precious to me since we had our son. I just hung the Grace Before & After Meals in our kitchen eating area. They are so beautiful. Thank you for doing these and sharing them

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Hi! I’m Kendra.

For twenty years now, I’ve been using food, prayer, and conversation based around the liturgical calendar to share the lives of the saints and the beautiful truths and traditions of our Catholic faith. My own ten children, our friends and neighbors, and people just like you have been on this journey with me.

If you’d like to learn more about what Catholics believe and why, and to be inspired by saints from every era all over the world, you’ve come to the right place. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with the prospect of how to teach your kids about the faith in a way that’s true, engaging, and lasts a lifetime, we can help!

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