Week 18: A weekend of bowls
It was a weekend of bowls.
We received an email from school stating there was going to be a new program offered this year for third through fifth graders to try out Quiz Bowl. The middle-school already has a team, and they wanted to pilot a younger age. So, Ben found some friends who were also interested. They had sent some sample questions along with the notice and we practiced. Ben has a wealth of (often useless) facts swimming in his head like his father, so it was interesting to quiz him on questions I wasn’t very confident I knew the answers to. Thankfully most of the other parents expressed the same uncertainty so I wasn’t alone at least. I noted more than anything a need for confidence building in Ben rather than a lack of knowledge. He didn’t want to ring in to answer unless he was absolutely sure and they weren’t allowed to confer with their teammates. I think it was a great experience however to allow him to see other kids of his same age working as a team in a different capacity and finding a new avenue for his talents. He had a great time with his friends and they want to do it again next year. They’re already strategizing.
Super Bowl Sunday at our house gets all the boys in my family excited. For some, it’s the game, for others, it’s the food, and we all like the commercials. Over the years we have evolved and nearly perfected our celebration. We finally refined our chili recipe to the point that it’s spicy enough for the adults, but not too spicy for the kids to eat. The vegetable tray and chips and dips require little leftover storage and even those get incorporated into meals later in the week. And we found the fluffiest premade cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting (because only monsters don’t eat heaping spoonfuls of that) that we can pop in the oven right before the chili is finished cooking. And Sammy has to have his “tiny hotdogs.” The game this year was pretty boring for two reasons: nothing much happened, and Tom Brady’s team was winning. Also, it seemed like there were two kinds of ads: I’m-not-sure-what-the-point-was weird ones or I’m crying. I have to admit that I really liked Bruno Mars’s previous halftime show. It was entertaining and I kind of want to put that guy in my pocket and let him come out and sing sometimes. Sam loves to dance to his music so I may be biased. I wasn’t a big fan of the Adam Levine show. It fell flat compared with others and it was sort of just a 90’s band with a slow strip tease with short appearances on a display of wealth. So, it’s a good thing we have honed our food methods. I enjoyed eating chili, relaxing on the couch with my boys and catching up on homework. We aren’t huge football fans at our house anymore, and the entertainment aspects kind of missed the mark, but it is fun to allow the hype of the day and indulgent food to bring it back around.
