10 Things I Learned This Week, Vol 93

I’m pretty sure this is a quote from the Super Bowl lighting engineer: “You know, sometimes things don’t go how you planned. So you just have to make the best of what you’re given…”

Lesson #1: Teaching your little one how to do Eskimo kisses when she has a runny nose is a bad idea.

Lesson #2: While having a much more communicative (and opinionated) toddler in the house has its challenges, it also has some great benefits. Like the fact that she can now point to her ear and shout, “Ouchie! Ouchie!” saving us from useless ear checks at the pediatrician’s office. (The clinic’s billing department, on the other hand, is quite disappointed by this development.)

Lesson #3: When you get your toddler all dressed up for a party, it’s best not to leave her in the playroom with the markers while you get dressed yourself. That is unless you think all the Valentine’s outfit was missing was black stripes and polka dots.

Lesson #4: I thought that feeling of being in a college lecture/meeting and really wanting to stay awake, but nodding off was behind me. It’s not. I went on Big’s field trip this week and (after a 5am wake up call — see Lesson #2), kept finding myself wondering how long my eyes had been closed “blinking”. In my defense, it was a showing of Good Night Moon, one of my favorite bedtime stories.

Lesson #5: Some kids play sports for the trophies. Mine do it for the jerseys. (These boys’ basketball jerseys get more play than their underwear these days.)

Lesson #6: You can only hope your kids think you’re cool until they’re say, twelve, and know better. My hopes were dashed when I went to find Little in his room and their was a sign outside the door, “Mom No”. (Translation for those of you who don’t read preschool.)

Lesson #7: When you wait until you’re thirty (cough cough) to get your hair colored for the first time, you ask a lot of questions. It never crossed my mind to ask if I’d have to sit for 90 minutes with a piece of cotton wrapped around my face and over my ears. Considering my phobia of the creepy material, it just goes to show how desperate I was to cover up my holiday bling.

Lesson #8: Apparently having my head under a dryer and typing on my phone isn’t the universal sign for “Please don’t try to make small talk with me.” I guess it wasn’t obvious that I was working on this extraordinary piece of writing.

Lesson #9: Getting ready to lay around and do nothing is no joke. Come our Hawaiian departure on Saturday, I’ll have spent weeks trying to take things off (poundage, hair, gray, etc.) and put things on (a pre-tan tan, muscle, clothes that show far too much skin for February, etc.). No wonder we never go on vacation.

Lesson #10: Win or lose, having your local team in the Super Bowl is a wonderful way to build community. Strangers share smiles and small talk, local entrepreneurs stimulate the economy by selling $5 t-shirts on every street corner, and you have no excuse not to eat glutinous snacks all afternoon (ruining all your hard work from Lesson #9).

Enjoy the 2nd half!