Paradise City Dance Party

When Dylan and Grady announced that Etna Elementary was holding its first-ever Valentine's Day Dance, I feared it was going to be like the last school dance I attended.  I had visions of low lights, bathroom vomit, spinning disco balls, and awkwardly trying to dance to the slow-fast song, "Paradise City."  Thankfully, the reality was pretty much the opposite.

For starters, this was most likely the first "real" dance any of these kids had ever attended.  No one had any idea what was supposed to happen, which made it great.  It started as all dances do: with no one dancing.  But there were snacks, I know because I was generously offered cups of pretzels by the snack patrol boys at least seventy-five times.  The girls mostly huddled in little groups and the sweaty boys chucked bouncy balls at each other.  A couple of the bold parents herded a few kids into small dance circles and pretty soon those circles got larger and larger and the boys who weren't playing on the climbing wall joined in and then, BAM, a conga line formed and it was on like Donkey Kong.

Kids bounced around, parents worked out old moves and the cafeteria suddenly transformed into Soul Train.  I was even asked to dance!  Does it count that it was Grady who asked me?  It does.  Dylan and I danced to Bob Marley (of all things) and Grady and Regina squeezed in until the four of us swayed and sang, "This is my message to you-oo-oo."

Since the lights were already fully on, and the DJ was just a boom box playing Pandora, no one knew when to quit.  We finally checked our watches and realized maybe the best thing about an elementary school dance on a Tuesday afternoon was that last-dance came early.  There were no weird slow songs to wind this sucker down, just some pop candy song from the radio and a time to clean up announcement.  What a perfect ending.

Dylan and the Impossible Load or Grady and the Overdue Transformers

I have packed, on my back, mule deer across the Colorado wilderness; I have carried a very solid Grady, on my shoulders, into and out of mountain lakes; I can toss heavy bales of alfalfa hay and I can lift Lardo the giant St. Bernard into the bed of my truck, but what I cannot do is carry Dylan's backpack.  It's ridiculously heavy.  When I looked inside, I found books.  Books!  Who reads physical books these days?  Apparently she does, despite also having a Kindle.  I curse JK Rowling, Percy Jackson, and every new volume of Lumberjanes for their weighty tomes.  If you lifted her backpack, you'd swear she was smuggling ... what?  Bars of gold?  Dumbbells?  A fine hammer collection?  The Washington Monument?  They test the tinsel strength of LL Bean's stitching, but, thankfully, so far, nothing's burst.

Who wants to see photos of kids reading?  No one.
Here's a couple of them playing in the snow.
You're welcome.

Last I checked, Dylan was reading 6 books at the same time.  Six.  I get confused when ESPN runs a ticker tape while sportscasters are talking, but somehow she's able to keep Ron Weasley's love life, Ghosts major plot points, and Queen Elizabeth's suitors all straight and in order without confusing Henry VIII as a quidditch player and Hermione Granger as a spirit.

My Virgo-ness (read: OCD) tendencies finally got the best of me and I snapped.  Actually, I thought my vertebrae snapped when I tried to pick up Dylan's pack to put in her home lunch, and I knew this had to end.  Actually, my first thought was that I'd take her on my next hunting trip and let her pack out a deer.  It certainly would be a breeze compared to the library she's been packing around.  Regina was more practical (ug, Virgos, amiright?.  Oh wait, that's me too).  She came up with the 2 book rule.  Yeah, I know, we have to punish our kid for reading too much.  The horror.  But at this point, we're just trying to save her posture.

Grady's love of books runs just as strong and he is like Dylan, who reads then re-reads everything.  Grady is on a Star Wars, Transformers, Batman book loop at the school library.  We get overdue notices every other week and I swear I've returned whatever book they're asking for.  Yeah, I returned it, but he's checked it out eleven times since then.  At least the rotating loop keeps his backpack at a manageable weight.

So Grady can keep stashing library books underneath his pillow and Dylan confessed tonight that she's reading 3 books right now.  I can live with that, as long as she does the heavy lifting.