Birthdays and Magic Carpets

First of all thank you to Grandma Cindy and Grandpa Darryl for the beautiful birthday dress! My camera accidentally got left in the van at the baptism so I'm waiting on a cd of the pictures that were taken so I can download them onto my computer and here of course.

The Magic Carpet

I figure that when my kids grow up they are going to blame us for any of the quirkiness in their lives whether it's actually our fault as parents or not. So I believe I need to do something at least once in a while so they will have something really bizarre to look back on and realize the rest of the time we were pretty normal.
I was standing in the front room this morning when I noticed the rug by the front door was turned back. As I went to fix it the tag caught my eye because in big bold letters was the word "Magic". Having very recently watched the movie "Aladdin" I had a little laugh to myself and when I went back into the kitchen where the kids were I commented casually that we had a magic carpet. Of course the kids latched onto that.
"Really?!"
"Where is it?"
I told them it was right in front of the door. They raced to the front room then just stopped and stared at it for a moment.
"Mom, that's just a rug," one of the older ones complained.
"Yes, but did you read the back?" I asked. Suddenly from amid a flurry of activity came a voice full of awe.
"It says 'magic'! right there look!"
That exclamation was followed by shouts and squeals of wonder. Then the question that, for some reason, I had not anticipated.
"Can we fly it, Mom?"
I can only say that I have been a mother for a while now because the answer came without me even thinking about it.
"Sure, just not in the house." So the troops ran out to the driveway carrying the carpet. As they piled on as many as they could they began to wonder how to make it fly.
I think Jonas was remembering a scene from Harry Potter because the first the he said was
"I think you have to say 'up'," so immediately a chorus of "UP! UP! up?" filled the air.
Then they thought maybe it needed a jump start so they took it to the trampoline. There they took turns sitting on it while the others jumped trying to get it airborne so it would fly. By this point I was on the phone with my mother giving her a play by play and laughing hysterically. The kids were starting to lose steam asking my why it wouldn't fly. I told them I didn't know, when my mother laughing in my ear said maybe they haven't said the magic word. Of course I had to repeat that outloud and that set them off again. I let them go at it, guessing magic words, as I walked back inside. After a minute Jonas came running in saying he needed paper and a pencil because they thought they found the magic words on tag. Now the tag is written in English, French and Spanish so I'm sure some of those unfamiliar words probably do look magic to them.
I finally called them in for lunch and we went about the rest of our day, but the carpet was far from forgotten. During lunch they had left it out on the trampoline and when a bird flew past the sliding glass doors Emily saw the movement from the corner of her eye and jumped up yelling that she'd just seen the carpet fly past. By the time they got outside though it was still again. After that I told them maybe we should keep it inside just to make sure it didn't fly off. Jonas resorted to throwing a glass of water on it to try and wake it up. And later when I went up stairs I found several of the children sitting on it at the top of the stairs saying they were going to try and fly down the stairs.
Somewhere during all of this they decided they needed capes too, so the older four were all wearing their baby quilts tied around their necks. It was during that time period that Adrianna brought Adam downstairs. They were followed by the carpet. When she had bent downto pick up Adam, Jonas had been messing with the carpet and it fell on her cape so when she went down the stairs it was dragged with her. Of course she is convinced it was following her.
They have now come to the conclusion that the carpet is like some of the animals from Narnia, (note the book Prince Caspian) it has been treated like a regular rug so long it doesn't remember it's a magic carpet. So now they are on a quest to help it remember.