First Dance

Dave sez, I guess I didn't have to worry after all. Justin is enjoying Friends. With no side effects. He thinks Ross is pretty whiney and Joey is pretty dumb. I guess, when he gets older, he'll appreciate it differently than he does now... Cathy and I are watching it a little slower than he is. We just finished the episode where Phoebe's brother is in love with his teacher, which is a little on the creepy side. Cathy and I agree that we're not fans of Giovanni Ribisi. We've seen him in James Cameron's Avatar and as Nicholas Cage's younger brother in Gone in 60 Seconds. As much as I liked the old The Mod Squad, I couldn't bring myself to see it because he was in it. We haven't seen him in a role that he had any redeeming or likeable qualities as a character. Hopefully, you won't think less of me for not liking him as Phoebe's brother and not liking his whole storyline. The real-life stories like that don't have punch lines, laugh tracks or happy endings. Not everybody grows up like Rachel, or Monica and Ross. Some people grow up like Chandler and Phoebe. Ribisi's storyline as Frank, Jr. is just bizarre. Even more bizarre is that it's played for laughs.

 
Two months ago, there was a "bend in the road". Bella's First Christmas and First New Year's was quieter and more low key than Ethan's and Justin's were. So was First Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

I had the day off yesterday, and the phone rang. We missed answering it. A couple minutes later, my cell phone rang. It was Bella. From school. At first, I was worried that she had missed the bus. She was excited on the phone. She was asking if she could go to a dance at school last night. Once I figured that out, I handed the phone to Cathy. I grabbed a paper bag to breathe into.

Last night was First Dance.

I think I've done pretty well up until now. Justin has had his "brushes" with girls. He talks to Mom, because Mom "understands girls". That's because she are one. Ethan is all about video games right now.

Bella was very excited about her First School Dance. She doted over her make-up and what she was going to wear. I chewed on my finger nails. The car ride over to school, I told her to have fun...but if anything happened - any thing at all - I told her to be sure to tell an adult. I reminded her that she could call Mom and me at any time, and I would come get her. I even asked her if she knew how to dial 9-1-1.

When I picked her up from school, I asked her if she had fun.

"No!" she told me. I had mixed feelings about hearing that. On the one hand, deep down inside I was cheering, "Yes!" I told her out loud that I was sorry to hear that. I asked her why. She said there was this one boy. Oh, there you go, it usually starts with one boy. He kept looking over at her, but he never came over to talk to her. My princess daughter told me that she thought this boy was too nervous. I told her that boys usually are pretty nervous about making a good impression - or, the right impression. Bella told me that she and her girlfriend spent most of their time at the dance together and all she had to eat there was chips. And she was starving! So, while she and Mom talked about what happened at First Dance, I threw a pizza on the Pizza Pizazz.

I love the personalities I see coming out in my three children. I love their senses of humor. Bella is usually pretty quiet. The boys are usually pretty loud and bombastic. There are moments, though, when Bella's eyes bug out and sparkle and she gets pretty animated and she makes jokes that make Cathy and I both laugh. She's a budding Tina Fey. She's witty and sarcastic and funny. She's funny in a dry, British sort of way.

Someday, Cathy and I are going to "adopt" a young man as her Prince Charming.

I'm probably going to have to invest in a lot of paper bags.