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Prince of Egypt? No Problem...???

I was delighted when my son Mykal watched The Prince of Egypt (Dreamworks Pictures 1998) and loved the movie as much as I did when I saw it for the first time. True to form, being like most children, he wanted to watch the movie again and again. I had no problem with that. Then about a month before his sixth birthday, he decided that all he needed in this world was a Moses and a Ramses figure to play with.

I could not remember ever having seen any toys from the movie, and even if any were made, that was over a decade ago. I did a quick internet search and found no Moses or Ramses. Mykal was adamant that I look again. This time I refined my search, and much to my surprise, Dreamworks had made some Prince of Egypt toys but in short supply. They are now collector's items with varying hefty price tags. I saw Moses, Zipporah, and the camel (lots of camels) but no Rames. So once again, I was stumped.

When I told Mykal that I was not going to be able to buy him the figures, he said (without so much as a blink), "You can make me some." I was proud that my son had such confidence in "Super Mommy," but this time I felt like I was in over my head. However, you know I do try to move the world for my children on their birthdays, so not having a Moses and a Ramses was out of the question.
Enter: the black Malibu beach Ken dolls.

I had watched the movie a half-dozen times even before Mykal made me watch it two dozen more, so I had a pretty good image in mind of these two characters. I thought of the best way to capture their essence with the least amount of headache. Lucky for me, the two did not wear much in the way of chothes in the movie. The short "skirts" I could accomplish with little effort and very little fabric. Enter: an old white sock. (Really). With no sewing at all (thanks to super glue), I fashioned the skirts and finished them with thin gold ribbon.

Their scarce clothing alone would not do. In order to make them authentic, they had to have the royal accessories. You remember the bicept bands and bracelets? Enter: those little fake wedding bands you can get about 200 for $1. I beaded two little "necklaces" onto craft wire and attached these to two more wedding bands. I broke a nail bending these to fit on all the strategic places, but after the jewelry was added, they really did start to look kind of like the characters. I knew that the very last thing that would transform the chocolate Kens in to Moses and Ramses were the headresses.

I looked for a doll wig for Moses' bob but had no luck. I thought about using black t-shirt fabric but could not get the folds to lay right to look enough like hair (from a distance, with one eye closed). Later, more out of desperation than ingenuity, I settled on cutting up a pair of black stockings. Add some thin gold ribbon for the band, and Moses has a bob (sort of).

Rames, of course, being the Pharoh had to have just the right look. Enter: the remainder of the old white sock, more gold ribbon, and a (what's that thing, a crown?) made with more craft wire, a gold button and another wedding band.

Just like in the movie, Moses can remove his wig, but due to an unfortunate incident with the super glue, the pharoh's headress is permanent. (If that thing comes off, the head is going with it.)

All in all, it was a pretty interesting project and I was proud of the finished product. I was even more pleased that Mykal liked them, because after all, that was the whole point.



Ahh...the things mothers do for their chidren...

Anybody know how to safely remove super glue from hands and nails?

The Haunting Intersection of Fact and Fiction

I added the novel Leaving Atlanta to my shelf some time ago, but a recent CNN news article has brought the story to my attention again. Here is a little more information about the book and the author from her own website, www.tayarijones.com:

Tayari Jones was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia where she spent most of her childhood with the exception of the one year she and her family spent in Nigeria, West Africa. Although she has not lived in her hometown for over a decade, much of her writing centers on the urban south. “Although I now live in the northeast,” she explains, “my imagination lives in Atlanta.”

Her first novel, Leaving Atlanta, is a coming of age story set during the city’s infamous child murders of 1979-81. Jones herself was in the fifth grade when thirty African American children were murdered from the neighborhoods near her home and school. When asked why she chose this subject matter for her first novel, she says, “This novel is my way of documenting a particular moment in history. It is a love letter to my generation and also an effort to remember my own childhood. To remind myself and my readers what it was like to been eleven and at the mercy of the world. And despite the obvious darkness of the time period, I also wanted to remember all that is sweet about girlhood, to recall all the moments that make a person smile and feel optimistic.”

Jones released another novel, The Untelling, in 2005.