On Saturday, I took Lamb to a birthday party at a Zap Zone. She had a blast. The party included laser tag. Although her kill ratio was so low that I advised her against an Army career. Not that I did any better a year ago when I pitted my decades old training against the single-minded teenagers who spend hours per week getting to know every square foot of the maze. But then, I didn't make the Army a career. Wise choice, I guess.
She really liked the roller coaster machine movie/ride:
The seats shook and moved through the mineshaft ride, that's why the picture is a bit blurry.
And the bumper cars were a hit, especially since last summer the carnival didn't bring the bumper cars to Ann Arbor! She was very disappointed since she probably could have driven them for the first time:
I blew a small fortune in tokens so that Lamb could win a few bucks worth of cheap toys. Man, those places must be a gold mine.
Sunday, we did a bit of introductory work on Lamb's science fair project to make sure she understands the concept and how we will do the experiment. This weekend she'll do the main work of the experiment after I print out some work sheets to record the experiment and build the mechanism (just out of cardboard--no big deal). Then I'll have to do some typing during the week and prepare for putting the display together with Lamb.
On Monday, there was a brief meet-the-new-principal coffee and breakfast at Lamb's school. I'd already introduced myself to him, but swilled down coffee and ate one of the small donuts. Later that day, as part of a parent-involvement day, I spent a few hours following Lamb around in her classes. Then at night, I took Mister to an evening talent show in Saline for the same parent-involvement event. His school orchestra (well, part of it anyway) played one piece:
He's somewhere in there holding a cello. We had only a small delay back at the school to put instruments away when nobody had keys to the front door.
Yesterday was the city-wide orchestra at Hill Auditorium. So I washed his orchestra "uniform" while his mom was at work during the day. Oh, and I had fished out my old Army dress shoes since he protested that an older pair of civilian dress shoes I gave him to use looked "too girly."
These are sad days when fringe and tassels count as girly. Oh well, I once agreed, but slowly retreated from that line over the years in the legislative world. But the brutal (and highly shined) simplicity of 22-year-old Army dress shoes inspired no teasing and were perfectly acceptable.
Mister's mom and I went separately to downtown Ann Arbor for the orchestra night so that one of us could pick up Lamb from her grandparents' house in town to take her to mom's house. My Ex was going to do it until she noticed that one high school was playing a piece she wanted to hear. She is a former violin player who had played there when young, so she was happy to be there after missing last year's performances because of work. I saw last year's entire performance, and Mister's school performed pretty early this year, so I was happy to bug out a bit early to go get Lamb. We played with her stuffed Puffles a bit, played Connect-4, and watched some TV until her mom got back with Mister.
Oh, you don't know what a Puffle is?
They're little, soft, money-making machines. In the Club Penguin world.
It was nice to have the time for the events. I do like being a parent.
