Saturday (afternoon) is Alright for Fighting

It was a rainy Saturday afternoon, and as sure as rain is wet, I was waiting for Jess to ask the inevitable..."can we go to Funtime Junction?" With no other plans, the girls and I headed out for the aptly named indoor oasis.

At this point, the girls are old enough to run around Funtime Junction by themselves, so I sit in a chair and either do work or listen to my iPod (or both), glancing up to make sure they are alright. After an hour or so, the girls ran over to me to complain about a boy pushing them. They quickly went back to playing, but after another 15 minutes or so, they came racing back complaining about the boy again. I asked Stef "how old is this kid?" She laughed and said "like seven, he's about half my size." At that point I knew this wasn't as serious as both of them had made it seem. About a half hour later as we were leaving, I asked Stef if the boy had still bothered them. "No," she said. "I told him I was twelve and Jess told him I knew Karate."

Saturday

This morning the whole family went to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey to volunteer for a few hours. We sorted cans, bottles and boxes of individual food items into different categories like canned goods and protein, put them in boxes, then loaded them on pallets for food pantries to pick up during the week. The girls had fun, and learned a little about people who are a lot less fortunate than we are.

A few hours ago, Jess and I played a round of miniature golf to make up for the miniature golf birthday party she missed a couple weeks ago because she was sick. Not surprisingly, Jess got 2 hole in ones, one on the particularly long 16th hole. She and I followed the great round with a dinner at Fridays, where we ran into one of her friends. Right after I finish typing this, Jess will be finished with Webkinz, we'll play a few games and call it a night. Not bad for a rainy Saturday.

The Bike Ride

Stef and I have a lot of fun riding bikes together. It gives me a chance to talk to her about her day and find out what's on her mind. So I was happy when Jessica recently got over what I like to call "The Great Training Wheel Incident of '07" (GTWI for short) and learned how to ride a bike without training wheels. For the record, GTWI was a non-injurious yet indelible incident when one of Jessica's training wheels flew off her bike just as she began descending down the hill at the top of our street. It's the first time the phrase "the wheels are flying off" could be applied literally to a situation I was involved in.

Anyway, we've gotten past GTWI, and I was looking forward to the leisurely "Daddy, there's this boy in class that I kind of like..." phase of daddy-daughter bike riding. But so far, Jessica's idea of bike riding consists of jumping out ahead of Stef and I by a hundred feet like a Tour de Family Bike Ride. I then pedal furiously to catch up to Jess to remind her to stop at the street corner, help her cross the street, then circle back to get Stef, feeling less like a dad and more like a cow herder.

I'm hoping Jess will one day slow down so we can enjoy some memorable bike rides like I have had with Stef. Unless of course, these are the memorable bike rides and we'll just be doing more of the same from here on out.

Fashion Accessory

Sunday at the pool club, Jessica was splashing around near the middle of the pool when I noticed she was still wearing her pink watch, which she wears 24/7. "Jess, do you want me to take that watch so it doesn't get wet?" I asked. "No thanks," she replied. "I don't know how to tell time anyway."

Tupperware

When I walked in the door last night Jessica was there to greet me with an empty Tupperware container. I asked her what it was and she said, "It's for you - it's full of kisses." I opened up the Tupperware and she added, "And the good thing is it never runs out." I gave her a kiss and thanked her for making my day.

The Concert

Last night Jesse enjoyed her first concert - the Jonas Brothers at the Izod Center. This was Stef's second Jonas Brothers concert, although this time we had much better seats (section 110). Stef had warned Jesse that the opening act "plays for like two hours, even though you don't want them to." It didn't stop Jess from constantly asking, "When are the Jonas Brothers going on?"

The first act was a band called Honor Society (another boy band - debut album Sept. 15!), followed by one song by someone named Jesse James (?), followed by yet another non-Jonas Brothers act, Jordin Sparks, whose songs I knew because the girls listen to her music all the time in the car (a little trivia - her dad played for the Giants).

All this non-Jonas brothers activity was followed by Jess asking, "Aren't we supposed to get popcorn?" So one trip to the concession stand later, the lights dimmed, the crowd went crazy, and finally the Jonas Brothers hit the stage! This was instantly followed by the mom in front of Jessica standing up, blocking her view. But then I switched seats with Jess and she could see the Jonas Brothers on stage! I could say they played all their hits, but in the eyes of Stef and Jess every song is a hit. The girls sang along, danced, and when the boys waved their arms in the air, the girls did too. Stef and Jess also had an ongoing conversation all concert long, which I assume was over which brother is the cutest, Joe or Nick (sorry Kevin).

We got back to the car around 11:00 pm, at which point Jess was excited about trying to stay up until midnight (she almost made it). Everyone had a great time, and with all the cameras filming the show, I'm sure we will all get to relive it again in the future (maybe Christmas?)

The Jonas Onus

If you look up the phrase "managing expectations" on Wikipedia, you will see a picture of me sitting with the girls at the dining room table explaining how bad our Jonas Brothers tickets are (you will see it because I put it there myself earlier today).

The concert came up again tonight and in my typical "managing expectations" fashion I threw out the "you guys remember that our seats aren't that great" spiel. It's mostly because I've lucked out in the past with concert tickets for Stef that I wanted her to know that you don't always get good seats; Jess thinks she's sitting in the front row so I've tried everything from etch a sketch renderings to IZOD center replicas made from Lincoln Logs to show her the distance from our seats to the stage. They asked to see the seats tonight so I went on the IZOD Web site and showed them the seats - way up there in section 228, where I've seen the likes of U2, Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, AC/DC, John Mellencamp (I think he was still using Cougar back then) and countless others. The site happened to say "tickets available" and just for the heck of it, I put in for 3 tickets. And lo and behold I saw 3 lower level seats just to the left of the stage. Of course, just to throw a wrinkle into things, these new seats were three times what I paid for the first set of tickets.

I had 3 minutes to decide, according to the Ticketmaster countdown clock on the lower right hand corner of the screen. And then the questions started in my head. Jess is only 6; does she really need good seats? Stef is 9 and already saw them last year, does she really need to be that close? Can I unload my existing tickets? Are they even going to remember this a year from now? Then I thought back to all my bad seat experiences from my concert history and pulled the trigger. I think I'd rather sit in the good seats myself than sit in the boonies once again. Plus, I skipped the last Bruce tour and the Police reunion tour the year before so I haven't overspent on concerts. And maybe, just maybe, the Jonas Brothers will do a cover of Backstreets.