First Grade Happened (And Other Stories)

So more than a year has gone by since my last Dad Blog post, and man, does time fly — except during a first grade girls softball game. Those are 75 minutes long and what with the heat seem to last forever.

The good news is that first grade went pretty well for Madeline. In addition to, of course, learning things, a few of the highlights were:

I Know Why the
Caged Bunnicula Sings

• Getting cast as Bunnicula in the first grade play, which explains why one of her spelling words was “vampire”
• Singing “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” with her friends at the year-end talent show
• Winning PTO Trivia Night (okay, that was actually me, Kelly and some parent friends of ours, but I feel this victory can't go left unmentioned)

Like so many households across America, it’s all Frozen all the time at our place. The number one way to shut it down is to jump in and sing along, as the last thing Madeline wants to do is duet with her dad. (I learned this trick from an incident with my mom and “Personal Jesus.” Eventually, we all become our parents.)

The number two way is to find “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” on the radio. That is her jam right now.

Meanwhile, James still digs My Little Pony, but he’s really into Thomas the Tank Engine. I looked Thomas up on the Internet so I could talk trains with the boy, and three hours later realized I’d fallen into a massive Wikihole. There is an insane level of detail to the Island of Sodor — it’s like a My First Tolkien.

I was also amazed to learn that Thomas & Friends is on its 17th season. A recent episode was titled “The Smelly Kipper.” At some point you’re bound to run out of plots.

Our family watched Star Wars together for the first time on Father’s Day. James wouldn’t watch it without his Star Wars ABC book. Star Wars plus the alphabet — it’s educational in two ways!

The first thing I did when James got the book was make sure J isn’t for Jar Jar, but thankfully there was no Gungan in sight. As a nerd dad, this is no less than my most important responsibility.

And now summer is almost over — next month James will move up a room at daycare and Madeline will start second grade.

Where does the time go? We haven’t even watched The Empire Strikes Back yet!

How’s your summer going? Do anything cool? In denial that school will be starting up again soon? Or are you counting down the days?