Here are the February highlights:
- Lilah and I attend the YMCA Father/Daughter dance for the second year in a row
- We take a trip to Frazier Park and have a horrible time (I exaggerate – but only a touch)
- Luke starts spring little league baseball
Lilah and I Attend Father Daughter Dance
Lilah really got into the preparations for the annual father/daughter dance. She said that she did not want to have a “girlie” dress and preferred to go as a goth girl. When she first said this to me I had flashbacks to high school and the girls who would wear all black, put on black lipstick, paint their fingernails the same color, and don hairstyles that were a bit outside the mainstream. But Lilah’s interpretation of the goth look was fortunately a little more subdued. Sure, there were elements of black in her outfit, but they were tasteful. The crowning touch in her ensemble was a pair of lacy black gloves that elicited comments from others about her choice of hand ware resembling something Madonna would wear. She was very proud of her outfit. Just in case I had forgotten, she reminded me that she picked everything herself. I, of course, complimented her on her efforts and we were on our way.
This year, we also took a couple of first-timers to the dance with us. Her friend Sabrina and her father joined us. I played the role of the veteran dad who had been to this affair before and reassured the other dad that the girls would end up doing a lot of dancing on their own with their friends and that our role was simply to step out on the dance floor with them whenever they beckoned us to join them. We had a good time, as always, although Lilah wasn’t happy that they didn’t play our song, “Like a G6” — a song that was playing with great regularity on the radio in the weeks leading up to the event, and a song she requested for the DJ to play. The song didn’t have any bad words in it, but perhaps the subject matter was a little more adult than the DJ thought appropriate for the crowd at hand. No matter, the DJ played plenty of other songs. He played current and old music such as I’ve Got a Feeling (Black-eyed Peas), and Thriller (Michael Jackson). He also played the classic group party songs like “YMCA,” “Cha Cha Slide,” “Chicken Dance,” and the “Hokey Pokey.” Overall, judging by the smiles, screams and sweat, I think the DJ did a nice job (Lilah still complained later about him not playing her song…Lilah never forgets).
I definitely enjoyed my time with Lilah and seeing her interact with all her friends. It also put a smile on my face to see my little girl turning into a young lady. Speaking of which, Lilah noticed she was starting to “get some hairs” under her arms so she asked Cathy about it. Cathy told her that her body was changing and bought her a book called The Care & Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls. It’s funny, because when I asked Lilah about her book she refused to show it to me, telling me she had hidden it somewhere in her room. She also told me that her friend Loren had received this same gift from her mom earlier this year. When Loren had told her about the book, Lilah had responded that her mom better not get her that book too. Who knows what Loren said about the guide, but a few weeks later, here was Lilah getting the same book. Cathy said Lilah does read the book, but she does it on the sly and always hides it after she reads it. When I asked her about it, Lilah said she had it hidden in a safe place and refused to show it to me. Oh well, I did not push her to show me the book. It’s just another example of my “baby” growing up.
The Doomed Trip to Frazier Park
We had all the elements of a perfect day out to the snow: beautiful weather, Lilah’s friend Tory joining us, and two new fast sleds to slide down the slopes. As we made our way to the snow, the kids hung out in the back seat alternating between playing their DS’s and having their own conversations. Everything was going fine. Sure, we had a bit of a hiccup when we hit traffic, but even then the kids found things to pass the time — like taking pictures of the “doggies” that would on occasion appear on our right hand side, head hanging out the window, tongue flapping in the breeze. Our plan was to get to Frazier Park early and then have lunch on the way home. Because of the traffic however, we did the reverse which got us to the snow a little later than we wanted to but oh well we didn’t have much of a choice.
Well, the later start impacted things because we ended up not being able to find parking farther up the mountain where the snow is better. It also didn’t help that the highway patrol had closed the road going up the mountain, which is the road we usually take to find a nice patch of snow for the kids to sled in. In the end, we parked where there seemed to be a lot of good sledding activity. The problem was there was too much sledding going on and too much of a gap between the regular sledders and the extreme sledders (mostly teenagers) who would take off from the top of the mountain and come down the slope at a high rate of speed. Also, there were too many lackadaisical parents who seemed unaware of the potential danger. Many of the parents were too busy taking pictures or talking to each other to notice that there were other sledders making a bee line right toward their child. On one occasion, even Luke took a small kid out as his sled crashed into him and knocked him on his butt. Luckily, the child was okay.
Then there were the rocks. We had been there no more than 15 minutes when Luke sledded right into a big rock (back first). He said he was alright, but from that moment forward he insisted on resting telling us his legs were tired and that he was getting a headache. Keep in mind that Luke had been bugging us to go to the snow all month and at last he had his opportunity. Meanwhile, Lilah was getting annoyed at all the people. For a moment it looked like her mood was improving as she got a few good sled runs under her belt. I believe she even smiled a few times. But within minutes her mood dramatically changed again. The cause: she rolled off her slide at the bottom of the hill which caused her to get the front of her jacket, boots and pants covered with mud. No matter how much we told her it was all part of the experience and that the mud would wash off, Lilah insisted she was done sledding — this was only about 30 minutes into our “adventure.” Luke wasn’t doing much better either as he went on another run down the hill only to get himself covered with mud too.
Long story short, we spend about 3.5 hours driving and maybe 1 hour at the snow. Just goes to show you that as a parent you can’t always predict that you will have a good time on an outing. Sometimes you plan something and everything just clicks. Other times it’s a disaster and no matter what you do, the moment cannot be salvaged. Oh well, it’s all part of life. We learned later that Luke did not hurt himself on the rock as we had suspected. Instead, Luke’s bad mood stemmed from contracting a virus that came with a fever, throwing up, and bouts of coughing. Which means Luke had a legitimate excuse for his grumpiness. Lilah didn’t but she got a little payback for her moodiness when Luke and Tory ganged up on her on the drive home. Lilah had this mopey look on her face which I tried to capture with my camera. That, however, opened the door for her friend Tory to give her a hard time as she worked with Luke to try to get Lilah to face them so that they could take a picture of her pouty face with Tory’s camera. Lilah refused to cooperate and pretty much sat quietly in her seat looking out the window for the rest of the ride home.
Luke Starts Spring Baseball
Little league baseball is definitely different in the spring than the fall. In the fall, the uniforms consist of basics T-shirts and baseball caps, the cost is only $80, the games are not competitive (scores are not kept officially, yet the kids always seem to know who won anyway), and there is only one game per week. Everything changes in the spring. The uniforms are much nicer and look like the uniforms worn by pro ball players, the cost is more than $200, there are two games per week (plus practice), and the games are definitely competitive. In fact, there’s an entire website dedicated to keeping track of the standings, including which kids hit home runs, and the race toward the playoffs.
So far Luke likes it and especially enjoys playing catcher. I asked him why he likes playing catcher so much and he said it’s because he gets to touch the ball a lot. Good for him. Catcher is actually a great position for the kids because they not only get to practice their catching skills, but also get to wear all the special gear to protect them from being hit. The gear came in pretty handy during practice as Luke has gotten accustomed the to velocity of our first pitcher, which threw relatively slow. Then, the coach switched pitchers. The new pitcher (Logan) threw a dramatically faster pitch. He threw so much faster that he nailed Luke in the head with the first or second pitch. Luckily, the pitch hit the face mask and Luke seemed somewhat unfazed. The only thing he did do was get up to get the catcher’s glove which is a lot thicker than his regular mitt, providing him with the requisite padding needed to protect his catching hand.
The only bummer so far has been the beginning of baseball coinciding with Luke getting sick and trying to recover from his illness. I think Luke was healthy for the first two practices but then got worse in the second week where the coach totally picked up on Luke’s attitude change which went from very positive to extremely passive. Oh well, I may end up keeping him out for a week of games until he recovers completely. After all, we have the entire spring season ahead of us.
More next month…