Friday Feature: Caroline's GT schoolwork

Proud mom brag: Caroline is in the Gifted and Talented program at school. I am not only proud, I am grateful, since the hours on Tuesday and Thursday that she spends in the GT classroom are, hands down, her favorite hours of the week.

The subjects they study in GT are totally different than typical schoolwork. Recently, they completed a block of instruction on Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Caroline learned not just about the historical figures, but was challenged to consider whether they were real or myth; whether they did good or bad by stealing from the rich to give to the poor; whether Robin Hood was a hero or a villain.

The poster and accompanying song lyrics that Caroline brought home this week clearly put her in the camp of: he was a good guy!

Wiggle wiggle, tug tug, and then...

Finally!! John FINALLY lost his first tooth!! At school, no less, warranting a visit to the nurse for the tiny plastic tooth case that is the envy of kindergartners everywhere who have yet to lose that first tooth.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think that the age of 5 years, 9 months is late to lose your first tooth. In fact, it strikes me as a little bit early. But John has had this thing going on for several weeks where his two bottom teeth right in the middle front started growing in. Behind his baby teeth. Because they hadn't fallen out yet.

Weird.

What is it with baby teeth that makes me nostalgic? When you think about the biology behind losing teeth, it's frankly a little bit gross. Small piece of calcium, dentrite material, nerve and blood exceeds its "good 'til" date. Rather than making a graceful and painless exit, it hangs on while the small owner sticks (usually) filthy, germy hands into his mouth to wiggle wiggle, tug tug. Eventually, sufficient germ infested manipulation has occurred, and the tooth comes out.

Enter misty eyed nostalgia. Especially for the first lost tooth, I exclaim how big the small person is getting, and talk of the tooth fairy becomes topic #1 at the dinner table. Suddenly it's not about the body expelling a now-useless part, it's about getting paid. Cash money, please.

In this case, my little man is stuck using the pink tooth pillow I made for Caroline because 1) he's kid #2 and kid #2 always gets the short end of the stick, and 2) he was in possession of extra teeth for so long I kept figuring I had one more weekend to get a tooth pillow made. Oops.

I have it on good authority that the pink tooth pillow will still result in cash money.

Fridge full of food and nothing to eat

You know, nothing to EAT, like a teenage girl with a closet full of clothes and nothing to WEAR (you really have to say it out loud with the proper whiny emphasis to get the full effect).

Justin called me at the office around 5:30 to tell me the kids were totally discombobulated (a frequent condition when hungry) and on the edge of rebellion (a condition not usually tolerated) when presented with the dinner plan of leftovers.

Here is the current state of leftovers at our house:

So, naturally, here is what we did for dinner tonight:

Hooray for coupons and gift cards!!

Super Bowl Sunday

I'm a huge football fan. Despite the fact that my Cowboys didn't make the playoffs this year, haven't won a playoff game in three years, and the last Cowboys Super Bowl win is a distant memory, I still devour every moment of postseason football.

Hard truth: I'm not really a 49ers fan, and frankly, I actively root against the Ravens.

This year, the interest was less in the game, and more in the hype around the Harbaugh brothers; less in the outcome, and more in the commercials. (Thank you, Oreo cookies, for bringing me to tears, I was laughing so hard.)

Lucky for me, I can always count on the Super Bowl for a smorgasbord of finger foods, the buffet of snacking delights that we call DINNER.

And once the food is put away and the dishes are done... Well, only 9 days until pitchers and catchers report.

Let's go, 'Stros!

Friday Feature: Caroline's schoolwork

I've mentioned that Caroline loves to read. There are about a zillion and one great things associated with reading, one of which is it helps you learn to spell without you even realizing it.

This week, Caroline brought home another perfect score on her spelling test, with an extra point for using the bonus word in a sentence. She's such a good student. Too bad she says she doesn't like school. Not sure I believe her though.

The beauty of grownup girlfriends

News flash: I was a bit of a tomboy when I was a kid. Yep, the girl who was the powderpuff quarterback, who went to West Point, and who spent 5 years in the Army was a tomboy. Plenty of cool things that went along with that, including playing countless games of pick up basketball at the park and racing bikes through the creek before it got turned into the backyard of a new subdivision.

But there were lots of cool things I missed out on, too. Braids and barrettes, high heels and skirts, learning how to apply makeup. I've figured most of this out in the last ten years or so, though I leave the braids and barrettes to my daughter.

It's just been the last couple of years that I realized: at some point, most of my friends were guys, and I was okay with my girlfriends really just being friends who were girls. Sure, I had plenty of girlfriends when I was little - Marisa lived down the street, I could ride my bike to Rhea's house, and Susan and I were practically inseparable through middle school. For whatever reason, though, as I careened through high school, it was simpler to be friends with guys. Then into the pressure cooker of West Point - where being an over-the-top Type A competitive achiever was just average; you were first judged on your physical appearance and physical fitness; and there were ten guys to every girl. Mix it all up, and it could be hard to form tight bonds with women beyond the circle of your own roommates.

Fast forward fifteen years, through ten years of marriage, two kids, career changes and eight moves, and I think I've finally figured it out. It would have been great to have had more girlfriends in high school, and it certainly could have made some things easier at West Point. But the lack of that super close, talk-on-the-phone-everyday friend makes me treasure what I've found that much more.

As it turns out, I had girlfriends all along: relationships forged in the furnace of our cadet years and tempered in the in-between years as we were all busy with the Army; kids; starting careers; just generally going a thousand different directions at once. And now - now that I understand a little better how to balance it all and can catch my breath more than just once in a while - now I'm able to reach out to those women. Now I've figured out that we were all just waiting for the right moment to be there for each other.

Last night was one of those special and rare moments. I'm in Baltimore for work, and three of those wonderful women, who know me like only a classmate can, came together from D.C., Howard County and Philadelphia (via Staten Island thanks to a business trip, might I add). They drove through torrential rain and ridiculous traffic just to grab dinner and a few laughs. Okay, a LOT of laughs. Like, people at the next table commenting about our volume level lot-of-laughs. But when you only get to see your girlfriend once every five years or so, you make the most of it.

So here's to you, Angela, Melissa and Sherri. And here's to the beauty of grownup girlfriends.

Sherri, Melissa, Amanda & Angela - beautiful girlfriends

Webster 2.0: Blabbergasted

Being an English major, I have more than a passing interest in the etymology of languages. The evolution of the English language is one of the more interesting subjects I've studied, especially in our modern age when everything, as we know, moves at warp speed.

The advent of the space age resulted in all kinds of new words. There have been countless articles written about it. Then came computers, and a whole new sublanguage of bits and bytes, floppies and flash drives. With the spread of the internet, we started talking in a dialect that our great-grandparents wouldn't have understood. Maybe still don't understand, honestly.

With all of the acceleration of new words and terms in the English language that come from leaps in technology, there's still an age old, dependable way we coined new words. Kids, especially kids being silly.

Without further ado, I submit the following for consideration in the 2014 edition of Webster's Dictionary: BLABBERGASTED.

You have to admit, it has cache.

Let's break it down:

• blabber: to talk foolishly or excessively; to say indiscreetly
• flabbergasted: to overwhelm with shock, surprise or wonder

So, naturally:

• blabbergasted: to talk excessively when overwhelmed with shock, surprise or wonder

Sound like anyone you know? Here's what it looks like at our house:

Blabbergasted, indeed. I believe we've coined a new word.