Monday, November 12, 2007

Working With Dad

The local drama club always comes to the pizzeria where I work every year after putting on their play. Usually we are unprepared and the order-takers and cooks are overwhelmed. Since I have a stepdaughter in the play this year, I was aware of the schedule and volunteered to show up and help out for an hour or so.

Since this was a night that I had my kids, and since they had helped buss the tables after a soccer team party a few weeks ago, I let them come along and help.

"Levi" helped set up chairs for the large group. "Bess" and "Rae" helped serve drinks, refilling soda pitchers and passing out cups, lids, and straws. All 3 kids helped fold pizza boxes while the drama kids were eating. The girls also helped driver (and part-time waitress) Kristie to take down the salad bar.

And they all 3 helped buss the tables after the drama group left, dumping pop into our "big red bucket", paper and food waste in the trash, and dishes to be washed into the dish tubs.

Kristie made over $50 in tips on the group, and she was nice enough to share $2 each with my 3 kids.

I've found that when kids know what they are doing and have tasks they are capable of accomplishing, they actually like to pitch in and work. This is especially true when they see others around them working also.

Friday, November 9, 2007

Partent-Teacher School Conferences

I think it's important to be involved in my kids education. Besides reviewing their work on the nights that they are with me, another thing I always do is to attend their school conferences.

Conferences were scheduled for last night for first grader "Rae" and fourth grader "Bess". Both girls are doing great in school and this was more of a way for me to meet their teachers and help them to understand more about the girls than a time to express any concerns.

Rae is reading very well, much better than last year, and her teacher says that her ability in math is outstanding. She does have to work on staying on task and not daydreaming.

Bess is also doing great. She is concerned that her time away from class for her ABLE or advanced classes is causing her to fall behind in social studies and science. Her teacher believes she is doing fine in these subjects but agreed to give her a little extra attention in these subjects when she returns from her advanced classes.

"Levi" didn't have conferences as he is at a different school. He did try out for a travelling basketball team on Monday and Tuesday and he was not selected, so he was a little bothered by that.

Because of the tryouts, I didn't get the kids on my usual Tuesday night. Because of the conferences, if I would have brought them to our house last night we wouldn't have gotten home until almost 9 PM, just in time to go to bed and get up early the next day for the ride back to their mom's. So I decided it was in their best interest to just spend some time with be before conferences and then head back to their mom's for the night.

I picked them up at 5:30, we had dinner at Bob Evans, and then I took them back to their mom's before my first conference at 6:45.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Saturday With Dad

Since my son stayed with his mom an extra night last weekend (for a birthday party), and since I allowed their mom to pick up all 3 a couple hours early last Sunday, I was able to pick them up for a few hours today, even though it wasn't my weekend.

I picked them up at 10:30 AM and we had an indoor soccer game at noon. Our first stop was at WalMart, to pick up some Propel water bottles. On the way in, some local Cub Scouts gave us a flier. They were collecting for a food drive and wanted us to pick up an extra item. I let the kids each pick out something to give for the food drive.

On to the soccer game, where we lost 11-7. "Levi" played goalkeeper for the first half and then scored 3 goals in the 2nd half. "Bess" also played well.

After that we went to lunch at a neighboring franchise from where I work. The kids enjoy eating there, so it was a pretty good lunch.

After that, I let them have some of the candy they got last week trick-or-treating, before I drove them back to their mother's.

It was a nice day.