Passtimes In Good Company

...to paraphrase the title of a song written by another (and much richer) prince who would grow up to be that multiple marryin', turkey-leg-gnawin' romantic sociopath Henry VIII.

Our court researcher has found two ways of passing the time that will not only provide good compay for any little princes you might know, but will do it for a song...and in the case of one of the passtimes, I quite literally mean a SONG!

For those of you who are mourning the lack of access to the arts in the public school systems have you considered trying out for a supernumerary job with a local opera company? These (unpaid) roles require no singing talent, since all you do is fill in as a sort of background extra, and they frequently have roles for children!
At the very least your little prince or princess can gain exposure to some lovely, timeless tunes, as well as gaining the cultural literacy that learning the historical contexts of these operas can provide.

Some "super" jobs even offer a stipend for transportation!

Here is a link to a list of questions and answers about super roles from the Cincinnati Opera, but even if you are in another town, or a smaller town give it a try. Homeschooling parents might be interested as well.
If your royal family can't afford a box at the opera...I say take the stage!

While supernumerary roles are equally available to princes & princesses, those with princes might be lucky enough to live in an area that offers free or discounted ballet classes for boys. It's a known and accepted fact that it is notoriously hard to get and keep boys in ballet---oh the TEASING!---the fact that many ballet schools are "pink princess academies", complete with Hello Kitty ballerina decor doesn't help.

In recognition of the difficulty of attracting the lads, many serious ballet schools offer deeply discounted or sometimes FREE classes for boys. It gets them in the door and learning an art form that offers tremendous, strength, physical control and discipline. Ballet also exposes young men to some of the worlds' most famous and beautiful music.
If you find it hard to afford organized activities that offer a chance to nurture talents, cultural exposure, and a chance to interact with some talented, and focused folks...do look into these opportunities.

Children Are A Joy

Ugh, just because you are expecting a thing that doesn't make it any less icky when it happens.

The S.P. was not raised to be the sort of child who quietly sits back and accepts whatever strange mood he is presented with by the adults in his life. While respecting the assumed wisdom of those with more life experience, there are far too many "adults" (that is people who have made it past puberty and into physical adulthood) who are deserving of nothing like respect since the only thing life experience has given them is a superior ability to justify nastiness and damaging behavior.

That being the case the S.P. has always been offered a relatively fair---after all, I'm not perfect either---hearing.

Considering that most 12 year olds are not adept at knowing just when to loose their arrows of unsolicited opinion I shouldn't have been surprised when the serpent decided to bare its sharp, sharp tooth...

We'd just left his practice after skating class, and the S.P. was getting his skates off and telling me what he'd done on the ice. Since I, like countless other skater parents, sit and watch the lad occaisionally when he's practicing I notice what he's working on.

Now, I don't have him in skating lessons because I expect him to be an olympian. If he turns out to be that good, well then, more power to him. The real reason I wanted to give him the gift of skating as well as swimming ability is that I want him to have something enjoyable that he can do for the rest of his life.
When he is a 53 year old man who has had a nasty fight with his wife, or my grandchildren tell him that they hate him and didn't ask to be born, I'd like the Prince to be able to head down to the rink or the pool and spend a couple of hours losing himself and dissipating his frustration through the outlet of positive physical activity.

S.P. and I met a chap who is in his 80s and works part time as an assistant at the Petit Ice Center in Milwaukee.
This fellow skates around seeing that the kids who come for the public skate days are doing okay on the ice. The ability to spend ones 80s in a wholesome, useful and upbeat endeavor surrounded by happy people enjoying some exercise sounds like a great long term gift for the Prince!

To that end I've set the little Omen up with a very nice local coach with whom he meets once a week (In summer twice a week but school is his main concentration now...see, I'm NOT expecting an olympian) We also hit the ice whenever there is free time so that S.P. can practice what he's learned and just enjoy larking about on the ice.

Today, however, was a lesson day and I hoped the Prince would use his extra ice time going over what he'd learned...at least a little bit so when he came off the ice and mentioned that one of the moves he'd just been taught was hard to master I shrugged and said that I was happy to see him out there struggling and stumbling a bit because it meant he was practicing what he'd just been taught and would get the hang of it sooner.

Here's where it got ugly:

Coldly, his Highness turned and looked at me with the dead eyes of the utterly contemptuous.
(Bear in mind he is a boy and boys don't roll their eyes like girls do. I guess the cold gaze thing is the male version) and in a snippily offhand tone that would have left Nellie Olson gasping in admiration he said,

"Just let me enjoy the sport."

I took a long, deep breath. I considered regicide, but since the S.P. is only the Prince and not a reigning monarch throttling him on the spot would not be regicide. Hmmmm, all that was left for me was to be dangerously, ultra civilized.
Miracle of miracles, I didn't yell! No heads were lopped off, and no towns or even small villages were razed!
Birds continued to chirp happily in the trees.

I did explain calmly and, evilly that the skating lessons, the ballet, and the ice time when they were added up, cost the court treasury dearly. To that end, IF S.P. wished only to play about on the ice for a few hours and not apply himself to the subjects of his lessons. I would save a great deal of money if I cancelled the lessons and let him just come to public skate now and then...I would also be spared the looming, grinning, spectre of $500.00 figure skates which haunts my dreams both asleep and awake.

I think S.P. was truly sorry. He must have realized just how shoddy he'd sounded, especially in light of the sacrifices it takes for me to keep skating as an option for him. This is not some Hollywood Celebu-kid hobby that regardless of expense costs nothing in the sense of "costing" the family. In our household maintaining his skating tuition and its accoutrements takes a substantial bite out of the treasury, a bite that could easily go toward other things.
Because the skating costs so much more for us than it does for the families who have five SUVs and could spend a thousand dollars a weekend and not feel it S.P. is obliged to either do his bit to improve with the program...or call it a day.

Rudeness is NOT an option since the Prince KNOWS the score and is hardly one of those kids who is or, indeed, can be isolated from the reality of life and money. I don't believe in that sort of thing even if he could be done.

A prince knows the worth of things. He knows the worth of what is done for and given him. He doesn't simply take things mindlessly for granted. A Prince while he may be entitled is NOT ungrateful, and he does not make it harder on his court through sheer wanton lack of mental strength and self discipline. He develops sympathy for others and a strong understanding.

The other road leads to revolution.

Back 2 School

(The S.P. himself---and you thought he was imaginary---taken with a cell phone camera while he was getting his hair and hands done for the new school year. Here's a BIG HELLOOOO and thank'ee to the gang at Truefitt & Hill in Chicago! )

Oh Noooooo! All over the land at about this time of year you can see harried parents doing the back to school shopping.
If you are a "real" prince you have staff to do the grunt work of dragging from shop to shop, wading through a sea of "I 'heart' Troy Bolton" notebooks in search of something more---er---MASCULINE.

Real princes also have the option of having their school uniforms made to measure. The more deposed among us must, however, slog through a grisly day of shoving at Target, and the Ralph Lauren Outlet as we consult our supply and uniform list and pore over packets of pens looking for the eraseable ones the school requires.

Naturally my prince, who feels it his job to make these things as easy for me as he can, has grown out of the size 14 uniform pants I bought him THREE WEEKS ago (He swore they fit! Who was I to disbelieve him?) and now requires a 16---so it's back to Ralph Lauren and the bitterly congested area around the uniform chinos.

This time of year is also the time when all of the summer schedule must be changed to make allowances for the school schedule. Since the S.P. starts back up at the end of August skating and Latin must be rearranged so that they are in the later afternoon. Ballet and swimming are in workable time slots as it is.

None of this, however, is as tough on the old queen here as the thought of Prince Baby going to school at all.
Sigh, last year I homeschooled him---I wasn't familiar with the schools around here and was too late to get him into the place I preferred---we did the tutor thing for those classes I couldn't hope to teach, while S.P. and I worked on literature, chemistry, and economics from workbooks and through the reading of selected books.
Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun by Geoffrey Canada was one of the books. I'd strongly recommend it for a boy. Boys tend to enjoy real books about issues which boys rather than bookish, female English teachers deem important.
This particular book also opens the way to interesting discussions about youth & adult violence and the misery that leads to such scary lifestyles.

S.P. loved homeschooling. Being at home is first of all, a very safe feeling.
You eat when you wish, the curriculum is tailor made ( princes like things that are tailor made) and the biiiig plus is that you get to sleep in!

The main problem was me. I'm notoriously incapable of saying "NO!" and making it stick for longer than...oh, say...a day and a half. I LOVE to see him smiling, and not being one of life's fighters I'm too easy to get 'round.
I'm sure I'm lovely as an adoring parent, but I'm shite as a rigorous teacher. Knowing this, and the future damage it could do to S.P. I set out to get him into a school with good lab facilities (he likes science and math) and a decent academic program all around.

I realize he needs to be out and about, learning from people who don't consider themselves duty bound to protect his joy as well as to stuff his brain with those topics that will enable him to specialize and make enough money to live safely when he's an adult---that is, after all, the point of it, if we're honest.

S.P. gets a kick out of my reaction to the sillier and more pointlessly retrograde conventions of the school dress code.
While wearing a uniform isn't the problem, lord knows I wore one when I was in school, some of the grooming requirements strike me as silly considering how we adults all lived through the '80's. We saw that Flock Of Seagulls hair will no more cause planets to collide than did Beatle boots, but what the hell let's pretend it's 1959 and because we're adults we're shocked by EVERYTHING!

Our final blowout, as free men (more or less), was a trip to Chicago where the above picture was taken while the S.P. was at his favorite barber getting gussied up for the new school year. After this he had every boy's favorite, Steak Frites at the, cute, friendly little Bistrot Zinc.

I'd highly recommend such a day if you have a son on the cusp of teen hood and he's starting to actually WANT to look and smell good.

Ugh, I don't want to think abou it...my baby's growing up!

A Fairy Tale

(This image from the royal archives shows the actual Shoestring Prince before the deluge. It is one of the greatest works of the royal artist M. Photoshop)

Once upon a time there was a little prince.

He was born to an impoverished and deposed queen but she loved him more than any other child, prince or pauper, who had ever lived on earth.
This queen swore that somehow, someway, she would raise her son with as many of the princely perquisites as possible.

If this poor, silly queen had two working brain cells to rub together she would have bought the kid a happy meal, plopped him in front of the trusty Game Cube and left it at that...she didn't however...and this is the story of a very poor prince and how the sole remaining member of his court moved heaven and earth to gain his kingdom back for him.

Now and again, the Shoestring Prince himself may comment on just how mad his queenly mother is.