Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

We went to Whitfill Nursery for our Christmas tree. Andrew immediately found the tree he wanted and claimed it as ours. Of course, we insisted we keep looking. "You don't want to take the first one you see," I told him. We looked for 20 minutes and didn't find anything else, so we went back to Andrew's tree and grabbed it.


Andrew helped a lot getting the decorations on the tree. He was excited and adamant about making some popcorn tinsel but unfortunately he has failed to actually put that into action!
Bob and I combined our ornaments for the first time. We have...umm...a small selection. Gosh for so long I had only a tiny little tree; most of the ornaments I had were really cheap and small. We had bought a few ornaments together on our travels and I had secretly ordered two ornaments from etsy.com, representing our travels this summer. I got an Edelweiss ornament and a glass spoon with a drawing of the Eiffel Tower. They look cute.
And, I'm clever! You see, I contacted Bob's mom weeks ago and asked about getting some of the ornaments that were on his tree as a kid. She sent four ornaments and I got to surprise Bob with them while we were going through the ornaments. He's a sucker for things of his past.

Here is our tree, "pre-trimming":
And of course, smiley Andrew walking through the tree farm:

Band Concerts and Sing-offs

Tonight is the big night for Andrew. We had his saxophone serviced last week and the technician said it's good to go. But, Andrew came home yesterday complaining that his saxophone "doesn't work". Now, I want to be supportive of his confidence in this new-found interest of his, but sometimes I have to wonder, could it be that you're just not blowing in the mouthpiece hard enough? I'm refusing to let myself ask that question though. He said he talked to Dr. L about it and Dr. L said that if it's still messed up at the concert, he can borrow his saxophone, "because I'm good, and Dr. L's good, so he doesn't mind if I use it," Andrew explained. I love that he has confidence about his music.
He did something really funny yesterday. He said, "Mom, this kid at school, Joseph, is always bragging and we are all SICK of it. So, I told him that I am sick of his bragging and I challenged him to a 'sing-off'." I bit my lower lip to keep the corners of my mouth down. "I told Joseph that we are gonna sing three songs each and the teacher can pick who's the best. I said, 'If I win, you have to quit bragging, and if you win, you can keep bragging'." I asked Andrew which three songs he chose. Very proudly, he responded: "GRANDMA GOT RUN OVER BY A REINDER, ABC-123, AND JINGLE BELL ROCK." I couldn't believe I was hearing this. So, I asked him, "Who won?" He replied, "I did!"
That entire conversation made me smile. He is so darn funny and cute!

The Band Concert

Andrew's band concert did not end up the way we expected. In fact, my sweet little 9-year-old referred to it as "the worst day of his life." And, it probably was. He looked so cute in his navy corduroy pants, button down shirt and Christmas sweater. His hair was curled "just right" and he even spritzed on his Benetton cologne. He looked adorable. But the smile and excitement of Andrew's first band concert was to be short-lived.

He was nervous walking into a new school where he didn't know anyone. His band teacher, Dr. L, had asked him to play along with another school. In fact, he was listed as a special guest on the program and Dr. L even had him stand up before the performance and introduced him to the audience, all to Andrew's surprise. But as the other students were warming up, Andrew sat there, nervous, with his saxophone in his lap, staring out into the audience; I knew his nerves were working overtime. He didn't warm up one bit.

I noticed Andrew fiddling with his sax and a few minutes later, he called me over. "A pin came out of my sax; it's messed up." I looked at it and sure enough, there was a pin coming out, keeping one note from coming out all the way, and another note from going in. We tried and tried to fix it, but we couldn't get it back in. "You're just going to have to make it work," I told him.

But, during the first song, Andrew realized he couldn't make it work. His sax was squeaking and he couldn't get on top of any notes. His face dropped. For the next 20 minutes, he had his sax in his lap, not even pretending to play along, and tried and tried to get the pin in. Poor kid. He didn't play even one song.

I began to get frustrated with him, thinking, Why doesn't he just pretend to play?! But, Bob gently reminded me that he was only 9 and had no idea what to do. After the performance, he began putting his sax away and glanced at me dejectedly. As we walked to the car after the show, he cried. Sobbed, actually. It was "the worst day of his life." I felt so sorry for him. He thought he had let Dr. L down. He was afraid it was going to happen at his upcoming concert on Thursday. He thought everyone noticed.

It was a parenting moment. And I don't think I'm always good at those "parenting moments". But this time, I had to be. I told him my sob story of falling up the stage during my piano recital when I was a kid. Bob told him how he was announced as "Roberta" in front of all the students and families when he was 9 and how everyone laughed at him as he walked up to the stage.

I don't often think that I have made Andrew's pain any easier. But this time, I know I did. Andrew came through it; we came through it together. And thank God I have Bob to go through this kind of stuff with. My heart ached because Andrew's ached. And my heart healed as his did. And the next morning, Andrew said, "I'll do better at my next concert; I know I will." Wow. What an amazing kid. I'm so lucky.

The saxophone's cool, but please put down that clarinet!

Andrew's band teacher asked him to sit in at another elementary school tonight and play his saxophone. He's stoked...and so am I! He has only been playing since September but he seems to really enjoy it. And, on the plus side, he's not too bad! I tried to sway him into playing the drums or guitar, but no. He wanted to play the saxophone. I'm happy about it, of course; but I adamantly put my foot down when he came home saying he wanted to play the clarinet. Absolutely NOT, I said. There are a million worse things in life than him playing the clarinet, but I knew that he would not continue his clarinet playing in high school. So, if the saxophone is good enough for Lisa Simpson and Bill Clinton, my little Andrew can surely do it! Plus, I think he really likes the fact that I know NOTHING about the saxophone, so I can't be "bossing him around" on how to play it. :)

Tonight's his big show. It's actually more of a practice rehearsal for him because his own school band performs next week. Bob's going to meet us there at 6 and then we'll take the little star out for dinner. I'll post some pictures from the event!

Happy, Happy Birthday!

On what is proving to be the most popular day of births, Bob celebrated his own birthday yesterday. A popular day of births, I say, because everywhere I looked, someone was celebrating. At school, I had three students with Nov. 23 birthdays. My Uncle Wayne celebrates the day, Robin from Prescott, a teacher here at Apollo, and many celebrities including Bruce Hornsby and Harpo Marx.
My mom started the day off right by making a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toast. It was so good! No wonder people say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. By eating such a good breakfast, I wasn't even hungry at lunch. For dinner, I made tacos and we had birthday cake. Andrew and I got Bob the funniest card. It said:
"If you guess the phrase, a great surprise is in store for you:
_A_ _ Y B_ _ T _ _ _ _!!"

No, no, it didn't actually say Happy Birthday; that would be too easy. Instead, it said:
HAIRY BUTTOCKS!

funny, funny.

We got Bob some cool biking sunglassess (also in order to replace the pair I broke last year). Then, we actually hung out! It's been a while since we have had an evening to just do nothing. We didn't watch tv, we didn't clean house, we just hung out and talked. It was nice.
And tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I'm ready for some stuffing; I miss my Grandmother's stuffing...actually it's called dressing.
My parents are in town and I guess it's going to be a regular ol' Thanksgiving.

Much better than the Fockers

After a year and half, Bob finally decided to introduce me to his family. We flew to Michigan early Sunday morning and stayed in the Westin in the Detroit airport. We got there around 4pm and were really excited that we didn't even have to leave the airport to get to our hotel. Lisa and Mary, Bob's sister and partner, respectively, picked us up at the hotel and we went to a small little suburb for dinner. They had us laughing the entire time. It was so nice to be around such funny, happy people.

The next day we headed out to Alpena, Michigan....four hours north of Detroit, to meet Bob's parents, Rex and Ruth Ann. As we drove to Lisa's office on our way out, we went past Eight Mile Road. I admit, I was a little excited to be so close to his hometown--and I'm not even a fan! The ride to Alpena was fairly uneventful but Bob and I always have fun on road trips. Especially when there is SIRIUS radio! We found some great tunes and even unlocked what became Andrew's favorite--the comedy channel! Fortunately, the "clean" comedy was much funnier than the raunchier comedy, so we all enjoyed it.

I've gotta say, meeting Bob's parents was a joy. They are so sweet, and of course I'm fond of the fact that Bob's mom was an English teacher and then a librarian. She made a pot roast with lots of fresh vegetables from their garden. It was great. Made me miss my mom and grandmother. We visited a shipwreck museum and then a lighthouse.

We were at the shore of Lake Michigan and Lisa showed Andrew how to search for Petoskey stones. Our trip was short but we drew names for Christmas and I got invited to participate this year. (I'm secretly STOKED about that!)

We had a really good time. Mr. and Mrs. Spurlock were sweet and kind; I just felt...at home.

I'm attaching a few pictures from our trip.