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A Mixed Celebration
By bbrown | January 15, 2009
Tuesday was a very exciting and special day for the school girls. Their preschool class hosted a Dad’s Night Out where each girl brought her father to school for a nice little party. Since there are two of them, they were allowed to bring their grandfather as well.
The build-up to the big day was especially adorable. Before I left for work, Annie came up to me in her endearing way—which featured a supremely-cheesy grin and a special arm-swinging, toe-tapping little dance—and said, “Daaad, do you know what toooday is?” I, of course, played dumb and we both laughed as I made one absurd speculation after another. (Much to Sandi’s chagrin, I think Annie and I share a sense of humor.)
When I got home from work after picking Joe up, they hightailed it out the door to greet the MINI and show off the brand-new dresses they got for the occasion. They looked great and their exuberance made me even more eager to go to the party than I already was. We went to dinner at McDonald’s and I bought them Happy Meals, which we almost never do. They played on the equipment for a little bit and we left.
Their Rainbow Room and the adjoining Teddy Bear Room were full of preschoolers and their fathers. We worked on decorating a popsicle-stick frame that will hold a picture we took that night. After that, we listened to Mrs. Thurman read Snow aloud. At the conclusion of the story time, Mrs. Larson clicked the ceiling fan on and let loose piles of “snow” that were positioned secretly on the fan blades.
The children erupted at that development. Annie, Kimberly, and their friend Kate proceeded to collect up handfuls of “snow” to throw at me. I returned the barrage amidst giggles galore. We concluded the evening with snacks (cookies that they had made) and the family photos for the frames.
Sadly, the ride home was marred by the realization that we had missed about 20 minutes of the party. I felt horrible and apologized profusely; I had thought the party started at 6:30 PM instead of its actual 6 o’clock start time. I blew it. I had saved the details on Google Calendar, but I don’t currently have a PDA or other PIM-style gadget. What’s worse, I had misplaced my cell phone somewhere in the house and Sandi wasn’t answering my calls from the pay phone at McDonald’s. (Side note: apparently, they still have pay phones but they cost 50¢ for 3 minutes. Craziness!)
The evening that had started so promisingly ended in disappointment. I had spent the entire evening with them so it’s not as if I were working through their party, but my usual memory aids weren’t around to come to my rescue. That bumped up the priority on an iPod Touch tremendously; I’ve started scoping out Craigslist for good deals. I certainly don’t want this to ever happen again.
Topics: Annie, Kimberly, Preschool | 1 Comment »
January 16th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
It was really hard to hear the disappointment that they weren’t there for everything. The girls had been practicing introducing their Dad and Papa to the group and they learned a new song.
I know that they enjoyed it though and I hope that the happy memories replace the sad ones.