There was no school on Friday. Great timing I thought, I have so much to do and now the kids are home all day too. Instead of the day long wild rumpus wrestling match I was anticipating--we had the best day. We seemed to fit everything in with room to spare.
There was one low point. . .
As the temperature plummets the four of us go through every single sale tree to pick the perfect one. We are successful and the high school kid writes KOTRBA in sharpie on the tag and takes our perfect tree to the loading area while I go pay. Bill takes the kids and gets the car to the loading area only to find that there is no perfect tree that says KOTRBA. Except the one on the station wagon that is driving away. Big tears. They loaded our perfect tree on someone else's car. It only take us 20 minutes standing around as the wind chill becomes annoyingly low for them to acknowledge that we actually had a perfect tree with our name on it. KOTRBA???? Tree???? Friendly high school kid is no where to be found.
Re-park the car. Get the mittens and hats back on and hike back to the North Pole where they let us pick out a non-sale perfect tree and put a $20 gift card in my pocket. Amazingly, the perfect tree was the first one we saw. They all look perfect when it gets dark and the temp hits twenty degrees. Tra la la. They are still my favorite all season greenhouse. They know a good customer when they see her. . .
Note to self: never go tree shopping on an empty stomach with low blood-sugar. Pack snacks.
Back to the perfect day--before the tree trip--in the morning--I vowed that we would still practice--even with Christmas hubbub. At 11:00 a.m. Mary and I headed up to the piano and had the best practice ever. We did every task and after forty-five minutes I said we were done and she said, "but we only practiced 10 minutes." I was reminded how important it is to practice at the child's time of day. For three months now we have been practicing after school when she is beat. There isn't anything I can do about this. She sleeps in the morning and Calvin wakes up early to practice. After school we just have a window to practice before I teach. It was already tricky for me to get that 45 minutes worked into my teaching everyday--I don't know what else to do. We are always rushed. I realize that it takes a toll. So, I will just have to keep setting my expectations lower on those school days and commit to having relaxed and lovely practices on the weekend. It is better to have a short focused practice than to try to rush through everything, like I often do.
In any case, it was the perfect day and the perfect practice. And. . . the perfect tree.
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