P.E. Night

I had no idea P.E. Night at Katie's school included philosophical debate. About half-way through our circuit of games, Katie had a meltdown when she realized she had lost a sticker.

Me: "It's no big deal. Go get another sticker."

Katie: "Nooooooo. The teacher said only ONE STICKER for each game."

Me: "Honey, I think she'd understand you need another sticker to replace the one you lost."

Katie: "Noooooo. Only one per CHILD per GAME."

Me: "Katie, I'm sure your teacher would understa--"

Katie: "No, Mama! That's the RULE."

Me: "Ok, that's the rule. But the POINT OF P.E. NIGHT IS NOT TO EARN STICKERS BUT TO HAVE FUN AND WE'RE NOT HAVING FUN IF WE CARE MORE ABOUT THE STICKERS THAN THE GAMES..."

When I decided to have a child and I envisioned what parenthood would be like, I never imagined some day I'd be inside an elementary school gym yelling at my crying kid to have fun.

We sat at the sidelines and watched the games, watched the kids running around, watched the parents humiliating themselves trying to keep up with their children at the pushup station. We talked. Katie's mood rebounded. I regained my composure. It was time to kick the crap out of some shoes!

Such a simple game, yet it's so fun. Here's how you play: we each loosened one of our shoes, stood behind a line on the floor, and tried to kick our shoes about twenty feet in front of us so they would land on top of a table. Over and over we missed. We had to stop before we both peed our pants.

Definitely something we're going to have to play at home. Our long hallway was meant for a game of Shoe Kick Off.

Katie's favorite activity was dribbling a basketball on a bullseye taped to the floor. She was terrible at it, but for some reason she thought it was hilarious when she'd hit her shoe instead of the bullseye and the ball would shoot off across the room. She'd run after it, giggling all the way back.

I'm terrible at it, but I somehow managed to fight the urge to yell, "See I told you so! THE POINT IS TO HAVE FUN!" and instead enjoyed the rest of the evening with my girl.