Getting Old Schooled

 (Also Known as Bring It, Uncle Will)

These two little guys have gotten sufficiently cocky in their John Madden Football XBox skills since receiving it at Christmas that they challenged Uncle Will to a match up.  Uncle Will tried to warn them that he played a lot of Madden in high school and college, but the boys were not impressed. Until Uncle Will schooled them 31 to zip, I believe it was.  I fear Uncle Will's dominate performance only inspired the boys to play even more video games with the goal of a rematch one day.  Getting beat by your uncle in a game gives you something to work toward. But it was fun to hear all of the uncle trash talking and nephew bravado coming from the game room.

The Time When Harry Potter Met the Two Pokemon

It was dress up as your favorite book character at school recently, and we took some liberties with the phrase book character to include Pokemon.  To be fair, I do read the kids lots of Pokemon books, but I don't really consider them book books, more summaries of cartoon episodes and descriptions of characters.  Nonetheless, whatever gets them excited about reading, right?

AJ is on the fifth Harry Potter book and was pleased to get a Harry Potter wand and costume.  Given that he often will back out of wearing costumes at the last minute, I was wondering if he would go through with it, especially at a new school where he does not want to look anything that could be considered uncool.  It was a positive sign when he agreed to put the costume in his backpack in the morning, and I think it helped that he was not the only kid dressing up at Harry Potter in his class.  Here's to all the Harrys and the Pikachus and Charizards as well!

Daddy Daughter Dance

For the past four years I have been encouraging, cajoling and generally bugging Joe to take Julia to a daddy-daughter dance.  Julia loves to dance.  She dances in the kitchen, on the sidelines of her big brothers' games and in the aisles of the grocery store.  She has not one hint of self-consciousness (yet anyway).  As someone who is not much of a dancer until he had as a margarita or three at a wedding, the idea of dancing in a school gym sans alcohol had all of the appeal to Joe of reliving a junior high mixer seen though the eyes of a 40 year old--been there, done that, and I'm good, thank you very much.

These dances seem to be a parenting invention of Generation X, as I don't remember them when we were growing up. I think they actually started out of a religious movement where fathers were giving their daughters "promise rings" to encourage chastity until marriage, which led to dads taking their daughters on dates to teach them how they should be treated by significant others in the dating world.  Then suddenly they moved to the mainstream and every year around Valentine's Day, these daddy-daughter dances sprout up at local schools, churches and park districts.  They have now migrated to the preschool and elementary set.  Thankfully this means it is no longer about anything more than just having fun with your dad.

When I heard that our new school was having a dance, I didn't even consult with Joe, I just went ahead and bought the tickets. When my commuter train pulled into the station from downtown, there were two kindergarteners with their dads sitting in the front window of a local Irish pub having a cozy dinner in their sparkly dresses on a winter night. I hurried home from work to help Julia get ready.  Little girls dress up in their fancy best and daddies seem to pull it together as well.  I think they had a pretty good time.  Apparently it involved a photo booth, hot dogs, cotton candy and maybe a dance or two.  As long as she has cotton candy, Julia is guaranteed to have a good time.