Normally nobody does me a solid and when a 2nd parental unit is not within the city limits I play the fun game of leaving early from one kid's event and arriving late for the other. My son being younger and more open to anything is happy to leave his event to join me at his sister's. My daughter, however, has reached the age where that does not equate to fun because it's just a nice way of saying she's going to miss the rest of her event. She's also slightly bitter that her brother even exists and therefore takes time away from my attendance at her event. I'd make a sarcastic joke about that but I'm pretty sure that will change in the next few years which will be emotionally devastating for me so I'm going to allow her to feel that way and even declare it a sarcasm-free zone.
I led off this wild and crazy afternoon by shoving my butt into my son's tiny first grader sized chair and was rewarded for my efforts with this portrait:
It's like a giant hair tepee surrounding me. I like that he must have drawn it in black and then realized that the woman that ties his shoe laces every morning has never had black hair so he scribbled a little red on top of the black. Nice touch. The hair tepee is easy to overlook though when the kid is asked what the best thing about his special friend is and he chose of his own free will to write in his own little chicken scratch, "She is smart." Awww. Let's go spend some money at the book fair! You, sir, may have anything your heart desires! And apparently his heart desires a Ninjago book. Then, inspired by the popular, recent Huffington Post article about the importance of mothers staying in the picture (that totally made me cry!), I smashed my face next to his and demanded that he smile:
Then he smashed his face next to mine and demanded that I act silly with him:
He also sat on my lap the whole time, held my hand to and from the book fair and served me punch and cookies. And I went home and wrote his sister out of the will and left everything to him.
Just kidding! I had to stop by his sister's class first! I'd show you the awesome portrait she drew of me except that's not how 4th grade rolls these days. She instead presented me with her different journals to ooh and aah over, subjected me to a lengthy discussion about some picture on the wall and then it was off to the book fair to drop some cash.
I love reading so it actually never fails to warm my cold, black heart to see how excited she gets about the book fair. She'd been visiting the book fair for several days by then and had made an extensive list of everything we "needed." I am a ninja at saying 'no' to molded plastic crap in the toy aisle at Target but a pretty easy mark at the book fair.
Among the items I was suckered into purchasing were books in several series including Rainbow Magic, Weirder School, Haley Twitch, Sideways School and Junie B. Jones (Way too easy for her at this point but how do you deny a kid the chance to find out what's going on with Junie?). We also discovered a new series by the Rainbow Magic people called Lucky Stars. If you know a girl obsessed with Rainbow Magic, buy them the Lucky Stars books and you will be a rock star. We also threw in a few other odds and ends to try out just for good measure:
Three days after the book fair, my daughter tried suggesting we hit the half price book store. Three days after the book fair, I told my daughter she's good for awhile.
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