Weekend Wrap-Up

I’m going to try to get back in a regular schedule of posting now that baseball is over. Although S. and I are heading out-of-town Thursday, which is yet another impediment to those plans. I’ll try my best!

Let’s begin with an old style weekend round up!

It was odd not to have a stressful baseball game two watch on Friday night. Or to be covering a high school football game. Or have some kind of social engagement on the calendar. First Friday night since before the school year began I could say that.

M. has lost two of her molars in the past week. Now she’s down to just two baby teeth. Which means another visit to the orthodontist is probably going to be on her schedule for 2016.

There were some Tooth Fairy issues this time.

She lost her first tooth last Sunday. As I always do on these nights, I set a reminder for 10:30 to do the Tooth Fairy duties before I went to bed. The only problem was that was the night of game five of the World Series. The first alarm went off and I snoozed it for half an hour. Then again. And again. And so on until it was 2:30 or 2:45 or 3:00 – I’m not really sure – and stumbled upstairs. I’ve had all kinds of interesting Tooth Fairy moments since M. lost her first tooth. Stepping on toys that were lying on the floor and made noise. Unable to find the tooth. Having to feel around under a kid’s head to find the tooth. Or just forgetting to make the visit and running in before the daughter in question woke the next morning. Being pretty hammered was a new thing. Fortunately I crept in without running into any walls or tripping on anything, collected the tooth, dropped the money, and stumbled back out.

She lost another tooth Friday. She had it in a baggie and ready to go when she and C. began fighting at about 8:30. I sent them both upstairs to bed. Once I got L. settled and came back down, I saw the tooth still sitting on the couch. I decided that since M. was being a jackass, T.F. would get the night off. Which was smart, because I didn’t have enough money to pay up.

Saturday night bedtime rolled around. I was watching football and got a text from S. saying “Please tell TF that M. lost a tooth and she is putting it on her bedside table.” Solid move by M., letting me know where the tooth was.

But, again, I failed to get any money during the day. We scrounged around the house trying to find a couple more dollar bills and failed. I decided to write a note from TF saying she was swamped and all she had was one dollar. But the other two would come soon! As with the notes the girls get from Elfie in December, I wrote this one left-handed. Which really was kind of stupid, because we know that M. knows where the money comes from. And she knows that we know she knows. I could have just jotted a note. But I figured go lefty in case her sisters see it.

Sunday S. asked M. if the Tooth Fairy came. “Yes,” she said somewhat disappointedly. “But I only got one dollar! She left me a note saying she had a busy night and could only give me one for now. She better get me those two other dollars soon!” We were in the car and I could feel her little eyeballs burning holes into my head. She also told C. and L. that the Tooth Fairy’s handwriting was a lot like Elfie’s.

Before bed last night, she made the loud statement that “The Tooth Fairy better get me my money!” Apparently she’s been listening to some of my early ‘90s West Coast rap.

Sunday was our annual “Spend a whole day at the lake blowing leaves” day. Between L. playing soccer on Sundays for two months, baseball, and the Colts’ terrible start, I had pretty much completely tuned them out. So much so that I just assumed their game against the Broncos would be the Sunday night game. We got home, I ran to the grocery store, and was surprised it was completely empty. “People must already be downtown,” I thought. On the way home I switched by the radio station that normally carries the Colts and a Pacers game was on.

So wasn’t I surprised to sit down, turn on the TV, and not only find the Colts playing, but up 10–0 in the second quarter. What a moment for them to finally right the ship! They made it interesting, but made huge plays late to seal the win.[1] Andrew Luck looked fantastic, even if he again just about got knocked out for the season three or four times. The defense looked as good as they’ve looked all year. And the Colts continue to be Peyton Manning’s kryptonite. I believe that’s 3–0 against him since he went to Denver.

The Colts still have a lot of work to do. They are shockingly thin on defense, and one or two injuries could blow apart that whole unit. They have to find a way to protect Luck. And another bad loss or two could destroy the goodwill produced yesterday. But nine or maybe ten wins are back in play again. At least for now.

Saturday night we took the girls to see the Peanuts movie. They enjoyed it, and I thought it was cute. It hit all the classic tropes from the historic Peanuts comics. Which, I realized, my girls don’t get a lot of. They watch the Great Pumpkin and Christmas specials every year. But they have never read the books the way I did when I was a kid. There were a number of little moments that amused me, but went over their heads completely.

I will say this though (Spoiler alert): the movie is set up so Charlie Brown finally (maybe?) has a big success. The entire time I was worried he was finally going to kick the football Lucy held before the movie ended. Thank goodness that didn’t happen. That really would have pissed me off.

BTW, I looked it up just to make sure Charlie never did actually kick the football. I found this page. I suggest reading through it. Turns out he did kick it, once. However, as the page points out, Peanuts zealots have a very important reason for not counting that attempt.

But really, where did fall go? We’re going to go buy a Christmas tree in just over two weeks.