Our regular evening routine usually finds us at home – dinner, playtime, baths, homework, bed… Today I picked up Juliana from her after-school program and we went to dinner. Eat-n-Park is her current favorite restaurant because she orders salad bar and that means she gets food immediately; she does not like to wait a long time for her food.
After dinner we headed to our event for the evening – a basketball game played by teachers and faculty from her school. The game is one of the school’s fundraisers that pays for the end-of-year field trips and it was the first basketball game that Juliana has watched. She attended two hockey games this year and watched many more on tv. By the end of the season she had a fairly good grasp of the rules and could follow the game. She started the basketball game assuming that the rules were the same as hockey. She asked where the penalty box was and we discussed the difference between periods and quarters.
I explained that when someone breaks a rule it is called a foul instead of a penalty. It was loud in the gym so she didn’t quite hear what I said so instead of fouls she called them vowels throughout the game.
Her teacher was playing on the red team. When we looked at the program I asked her who some of the other teachers were on the red team. Then I asked about the black team and she closed the program and told me we were not talking about that team. At one point in the game her teacher missed a basket and Juliana yelled “Ms W you have to try really hard, I know you can do it!”
Before the game started we talked to her teacher and Ms W gave her a piece of bubble gum. Ms W said that is was special team red gum and only the players on the red team had it. It was a giant piece of watermelon bubble gum. Juliana held it until the game started and chewed it throughout the game. When we were walking to the car she asked if she could get rid of the gun because it was out of flavor…she wouldn’t stop chewing it as long as Ms W was playing.
She made a sign for the game – there is a lot of pink and I am not quite sure what else is in the picture with the exception of the score – Team Black 1, Team Red 100. And here she is with her green gum smile.
Vowels! I love it!
I think these date nights are really great. She’ll remember them always. I know I still do & we never had a date night like yours. We actually could not afford to do it. I was a depression baby & we did without a lot but when I look back & wonder how my parents kept a little food in our tummies & somehow got some shoes & clothes so we could go to school I truly marvel. But to get back to our little date night – there were times when all my sisters & brother would be away & I’d be alone with mom. She’d send me to the corner store to buy us each an ice cream sucker & we’d sit & eat it together & really enjoy our time together & rare treat. I know she did it with the others too. The treats probably were only a nickle back then but we had so little & that was so much back then. We never knew we were so poor. We always felt loved and taken care of and safe – that’s more than a lot. Grama Julie P.S. Isn’t it strange that even to this day Eat & Park is my favorite place too.