Is This Normal?
The chaos that is the KerbersArchive for February, 2012
Happy leap day!
Hey, I only get to say that once every four years, so I had to document it, right? The truth is I really have no idea why Leap Day is that big of a deal. I get the whole science behind it…it really takes 365.25 days to circle the sun, so we have to add an extra day every four years. But what’s the big deal?
I did some research to see if there were any types of superstitions or traditions surrounding Leap Day, and just about the only thing I could find was a super outdated tradition that it is ok for women to propose marriage to am an on Leap Day. Gee, thanks for the permission. I wish there was some sort of fun thing that went with the day…like everyone wearing orange on that day, or school being cancelled that day. Something. But instead, I just get to say, “Happy Leap Day”. Big whoop.
Daddy’s night
Tonight it was finally time for Emma to bring Dave to Daddy’s Night at Tomorrow’s Promise. She had been looking forward to this for weeks…well, actually probably years if you count how jealous she was when Ben got to take him the last two years. Dave, on the other hand, was not really looking forward to it too much. But of course he acted very excited and when 6:30 rolled around they were off.
Sadly, Emma didn’t write a Daddy story like Ben did the last two years. Her teacher made Facebook pages about their dads. So the kids were answering the same types of questions about their dads, but it wasn’t put into one succinct story. 
The best part, by far, is the status update where Dave is saying, “Why is there always something to fix around here?” That is perfect for his status lately. I also love the part when Emma said that she didn’t know what he did when she wasn’t around because, “I’m not around, how would I know?” That’s my little critical thinker. :)
I know that Dave enjoyed seeing Emma in her school environment, even if it was a bit chaotic and crazy. Most importantly, though, it meant the world to her having her Daddy go to school with her.
They can do it when they wanna
Because I am the high school Curriculum Chair there are sometimes responsibilities outside of the normal school day. The elementary and jr. high chairs and I were desperately trying to schedule an after school meeting. It wasn’t going so well…mainly because I don’t have a lot of options for after school daycare. So I threw out the idea of me bringing my kids to the meeting. I knew we would be meeting in an elementary IMC, so there would be a lot there to entertain the kids. Both of my colleagues agreed that it would be fine to have the kids there, so we set it for this afternoon.
I was definitely nervous about taking them. For one thing, they really like to go straight home after school to decompress a bit before doing anything else. Secondly, their behavior is always a crap shoot. Sometimes when I really need to be doing something else they absolutely cannot let me do it. But, we headed to the elementary school with me explaining how important it was for them to be good.
I cannot even tell you how proud I was of their behavior. The elementary librarian set them up on a computer each, and Ben was so sweet showing Emma how to work a program that he uses all the time during tech time. Then she went over to the carpet and played with her Barbies. She did come ask me to put a dress on a Barbie for her, but she was quiet and polite, and I could easily do it while still talking to my co-workers. When it was time to go, the elementary librarian commented on how good they had been, and she asked Ben if he wanted this little Lego guy that had come with some book. ”I was waiting for the perfect person to give this to, and after your behavior today, I think that’s you,” she said. He (and I) was thrilled.
As we were driving home I praised and praised them and made sure to tell Dave all about it at dinner while the kids were at the table, too. I hope that this is a glimpse of what’s to come when they get a little more maturity. It was awesome.
Surrealism times ten
Surreal is a word I use often, because I like it, and I often think it describes my life well. But today, I truly discovered what the word means during our afternoon staff meeting. It was a school improvement day, which means an entire day of meetings…typically not a thrilling, fun event for us teachers. Our morning was spent with only the IMC department, and it was awesome. We’re revamping our website, and got a lot of work done on it. It was a good morning. Little did we know that our meeting after lunch would be so tumultuous.
I can’t really tell the entire story, because there isn’t enough time or space to type everything out, and this really isn’t the venue to do so. But I will say that something happened last week that had some of our staff upset. It was frustrating. But our Associate Principal, who was recently named Principal for next year, decided that we needed to talk about it instead of keeping it all inside and stewing, like we usually do. It was frightening, to say the least. He told me later that when he opened the floor up to people and he looked around the room expectantly, all he saw was fear. We haven’t been given the chance to voice our opinions much over the last 10 years, but I think we’ll finally be getting it more and more with our new administration.
It’s definitely surreal to speak our minds around here, but it’s nice to feel like we finally have a voice.
An awesome get-away
We had a wonderful get-away to Key Lime Cove over the weekend. The kids had been looking forward to it for weeks, and even Dave and I were super excited to have some quality family time together.
We did everything in the water park…the wave pool, the slide and climbing area, the kiddie area, and Ben even went on the big slides. We spend some time in the craft area, and even got balloon animals! Then we went to Rain Forest Cafe for dinner before coming back to the water park for more fun. The kids had such a great time playing together, and since they were pretty contained in the “pineapple” area, Dave and I actually had time to sit and talk to each other without much interruption at all, which was heaven for us.
The next day we met up with our friends the Madzinskis for lunch in Naperville. It was a short, but very nice visit with them. Then we headed to the DuPage Children’s Museum and played there for a couple of hours. When we finally headed for home, we were all tired, but incredibly relaxed and happy. The weekend really was a perfect retreat from the winter blahs and winter weather.
This short trip made all of us so excited for Spring Break. Let’s hope we can make it through the next 5 weeks!
Valentine’s Day
Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m not a big fan of Valentine’s Day. However, I do appreciate that it’s special to the kids, so I tried to create a little bit of festivity for them. 
Before dinner, I arranged a heart of kisses around a Kit Kat bar for each of them just above their placemats. You would think that I had made them something of pure gold as excited as they were when they saw those. I surprised them again by making their favorite dinner, buttered noodles. 
But they weren’t regular buttered noodles…oh no. I had put some food coloring in the water to tint the noodles pink! I know if my mom is reading this she is gagging right now, but the kids loved it. I gave them red grapes with their pink noodles, and the Valentine’s Day dinner was complete. I just wish I would have tinted the milk pink, too. It was all very gourmet.
After dinner Ben was inspired by my Valentine’s actions. As soon as he was done eating he grabbed some paper and made Valentines for Dave, Emma, and me. 
He proudly cut them out, drew a picture of our family on the front, and wrote our name on the back. Then he hand delivered them with a huge smile on his face. It was the best Valentine I could get.
So, as I continue to believe that Valentine’s Day is nothing more than a Hallmark holiday, I will always make sure that my kids feel the love from me…year round.
The Daddy-Daughter Dance
For the first time ever, NCHS hosted a Daddy-Daughter dance this afternoon. As soon as I heard about it I signed Dave and Emma up. I knew it would be something that she would love. Dave was not super excited about it, but Emma could not wait.
I got her a new dress, we got her hair trimmed this morning, and I got her all done up and ready to go. She was literally bouncing with excitement. She and Dave left to meet Bob & Anna Myrvold and Brian & Laina Runyon for lunch before the big event. It was absolutely darling.
I was so wishing I could be there to watch all the daddies and their girls. I figured that there would be a lot of running around and a whole lot of spinning. I was surprised to get a text from Dave that said that Emma didn’t want to dance with him. 
She just wanted to dance and run with her friends. The poor guy was feeling rejected by his date. As he put it, he was “still a wallflower even after he was married.” But the important thing, I guess, is that Emma was having a ball. They had ice cream and crafts, and they even got a picture taken together…almost like a Homecoming or Prom picture.
I know it was not the most fun Dave’s ever had before, but I also know he loved hanging out with Emma for an afternoon.
And she was thrilled beyond belief to have the time alone with her Daddy. I will always cherish this picture of the two of them because it will remind me of Emma’s very first true love…her Daddy.
Toothless
Finally, finally Ben lost his second front tooth tonight. It has been loose for almost a month, but he never wants to wiggle it too much. He’s always so tentative. Besides, Mrs. DeBord told him that you couldn’t lose a front tooth until you could twist it all the way around. So he just left that thing alone.
This afternoon is was so twisted and barely hanging on. It looked disgusting, to be honest, like he had some kind of snaggletooth. Dave kept trying to encourage him to pull it out. But of course, Ben wouldn’t even touch it or let us touch is as long as we were in the vicinity. After he finished dinner, though, he kind of went off on his own and shortly after the tooth was out.
Ben is now toothless in front.
I love this look…it’s too cute. I instantly noticed that he has a bit of a lisp, and I’m sure that eating some foods will be more difficult, but I still love the look. It’s like a rite of passage for kids to be toothless, right?
Come and get it, tooth fairy!
He tries so hard to be brave…
Star Wars I is being re-released to the theaters in 3D later this month. Dave and I were debating whether Ben would be able to handle seeing it in the theater or not, so we decided to let him watch it here to see if he’d be interested in going to the movies with Dave.
Ben was all gung-ho about watching it, so last night we started it. He was literally sitting on the edge of his seat, and he was asking Dave a million questions about it. It actually went very well. They didn’t have enough time to watch the whole movie last night, so tonight Ben started asking about finishing the movie as soon as we got home from school today. We put him off until after dinner, and then Dave fired it up to finish. By the time we went upstairs to get ready for bed, Ben was all excited because they had finished I and had started II. It was all good.
Five minutes after we came downstairs Ben was down here crying hysterically. He was scared because of the movie. The poor little man. Dave said that he had been kind of quiet and weird as he was tucking him in, but I had no idea it was that bad. Dave had to take him back upstairs and talk him of the ledge big time. He had to leave the hall light on and leave Ben’s door open to even get out of the room, but Ben was finally calmed down enough to let him go.
It was actually very sweet. Ben was so excited at the prospect of going to the movie with Daddy that he tried his hardest to get through it bravely. But once the lights went out it was just too much for him. The final decision was actually very easy to make…there is no way Ben will be seeing this movie in the theater. Since he’s totally into Star Wars, though, we’ve decided to try him on the old ones, numbers IV-VI, which are a bit tamer. Hopefully that will go better!
Trivia and canoeing
What could they possibly have in common, you ask? Well, tonight, we did both. There was a trivia night at my high school, so us and three other couples bought a table, coordinated our snacks, and headed to the cafeteria.
We named our team “4 Roses and 4 Thorns”. There was great debate over who were the roses and who were the thorns, of course, but I think anyone who looks at this picture can clearly see for themselves. It was very fun, and I have to add that we won the whole thing! Not that I’m bragging or anything, but we kind of dominated. Just sayin’.
After our victory, Dave and I invited everyone over for some grown-up drinks. The kids were spending the night at Aunt Theresa’s house, so we wanted to take full advantage of our kid-less night. Sadly, since it was Friday and they were tired from an exhausting week, one couple declined, but the other two came over and we had a great time. The women were pretty much just talking, but the men decided to play some Wii. They bowled, and then jousted on a platform, and Bob even flew a plane. Then they decided to try canoeing. I’m not kidding you when I say I’ve rarely seen anything funnier than three grown men desperately rowing the air trying to steer and move a canoe on TV.
They were terrible at it, and it was hilarious. At one point they were just going in circles, and most of the time they were not going where they wanted or intended to go. And they were all huffing and puffing pretty good after a few minutes of work. We women were cracking up.
Everyone stayed for a couple of hours, and I enjoyed it immensely. I love having such good friends in our life.
