A Little Bit of Everything: Holiday Edition

We're Stumbling Toward The Finish Line

Holiday chorus concert decorations decking the halls.

As the first half of the fourth grade school year rolls and shambles and spirals to a close, it feels like we could all use a break.

I’ve been teasing my sister about bringing up two boys, when it feels like all the things Little Bean is involved in occupies literally all my free time - and some of our not free time!

While parents often are looking for reasons to skip school club related events, I took the opportunity of Little Bean’s holiday chorus concert this week to actually sit still in one place for an hour and NOT have to do anything but listen to little kids sing Christmas, Diwali and Hanukkah songs.

Little Bean did great, belting out the carols up there with her classmates, though she mentioned that she had hoped for a solo. A lesson in not always getting what you want, one supposes.

At basketball practice recently, she was irritated that she wasn’t passed the ball as often as she wanted. We explained that she just had to be louder and more aggressive and sure enough that strategy seemed to work for the next practice.

It occurred to me that louder and more aggressive would likely NOT work when it came to chorus holiday concert solos. A lesson about lessons for me I suppose.

There’s more on the horizon it seems. On the way to school today, she informed me that she had the lead role as the narrator in an upcoming school play.

“It’s 14 pages daddy!”

“You have to memorize 14 pages?”

“No, the whole play is 14 pages but I have lines on every page.”

I have no idea what the play is or when it will be performed, but I’ll learn soon enough and that will be one more event to schedule on my calendar.

I’ve also been informed that there’s some sort of friend sleepover happening over the holiday break.

Before Little Bean arrived, my wife and I would celebrate Christmas Day by driving down to Boston, catching a movie and having Chinese food for lunch. Maybe this year, we’ll try for half of that. Maybe we’ll toss whichever kid happens to be nearby into the car and drive up the street for some Chinese take out.

Whatever happens, for this last weekend before the holiday madness, we’ll try to have a relatively quiet time... Who am I kidding, ‘Santa’ still has to go shopping!