Theme Days

It is a special week at Ben's preschool this week.  I can't remember the name exactly and I threw away the flyer about it but it is sponsored by the United Way and there is a bake sale and fundraisers and that sort of thing.  The kids also are dressing up each day to match different themes.  Monday was "crazy hair" day.  He just had his hair cut the day before Milo was born so it is still quite short so I wasn't sure what to do to make his hair crazy.  On Monday morning I remembered that Justin used up the endless bottle of generic men's hair gel that we have had for years so I had to use some pomade balm of mine that smells tropical and beachy.  I did a center Mohawk and told him it was spikes like a dinosaur so that made him happy and amicable to having his hair fixed since, on a daily basis, having his hair fixed causes screaming and fighting. 

This is the best picture I could get in the morning rush.  Yes, that is the glowing blue light of an animated PBS show cast on his face. 

Here he is after school.  I guess my pomade doesn't have very much holding power. 

 

Friday is, of course, Halloween costume day.  I was disappointed that pajama day was yesterday, on a day when he didn't have school.  That would have been fun for him since he has so many fun pajamas with Paw Patrol, Lightning McQueen and the snowman from Frozen on them. It would have also been easy for me. 

 

These theme days have reminded me of one of my favorite memories of my school days which was Homecoming week.  We had theme days like this.  Monday was always pajama day.  Most of the girls would get up and get ready as usual and then put on some cute pajamas.  I know I would usually do that and change out of whatever crappy oversized basketball camp t-shirt I slept in.  Friday was always school colors/pep rally day but the other three days were voted on by the student council every year.  We had all sorts of crazy days including toga day, inside out day, formal dress up day and opposite sex day. This day probably is not allowed anymore but the guys all really had fun with it.  I think men secretly enjoy having an excuse to wear women's clothes and act silly.  In college there was a Mr. NDSU pageant every year and the lip sync portion was generally 90% devoted to imitating female singers!  I can think of countless examples of this phenomenon, including the girls basketball team dads wearing the oversized 90's cheerleading sweaters and doing a routine at our send off rally when we went to the state tournament where my dad and most of the other larger dads pinned two skirts together and one even wore a skirt on each leg...yes that happened...and my brother and his friends "losing a bet" or some nonsense and getting girl makeovers from my sister and her friends where they ended up with full clown makeup and wearing my mom's old dresses from the 1970s complete with shoes and pantyhose.  There was also "grunge day", although we all dressed so bad in the 1990s that I don't know why that was even a theme day!  It could have been "wear your normal crummy t-shirts, baggy jeans, flannel shirts and sweatshirts that are 4 sizes too big" day. 

 

One year, the student council could not agree on could not agree on what to designate as the theme for the final undecided day and a senior girl said with a shrug, "How about we just have 'Wacky Day' and everyone can dress in whatever theme they want?".  I was at that meeting and it was like she spoke the words of a genius and a new tradition was born.  Now, students could engage in any craziness they wanted.  If you felt like wearing a toga but there was no toga day that year?  You could still wear a toga!  You wanted to wear your older sister's prom dress from the 80's but you were a guy and there was no opposite sex day that year?  You could wear your sister's prom dress!  I remember being in college and calling my mom and asking what my brother and sister wore for Wacky Day and she reported that my brother wore a pair of my size 8 tight fitting boot cut jeans and a Ford Dealership work shirt and was handing out pens in honor of the near retirement salesman who worked there.  That was perfect for wacky day! 

 

Oh, how I wish I had my high school photo albums here but they are at my parent's house.  There is photographic evidence of everything I spoke of here.  There is a whole roll of film devoted to my senior year homecoming week and let me tell you...no one is wackier than seniors!  It's probably a good thing those pictures don't exist in digital format.  There is also photos of the dad's cheerleading squad and my brother and his friends as middle school aged women wearing polyester mini dresses sewn by my mom in 1974 and high heels.  I never did see a picture of my brother wearing my jeans but I'm sure one is out there somewhere. 

 

Oh, the fun that lies ahead for my kids.  I hope fun things like theme days don't end up being taken away because of someone complaining because it makes them offended somehow.  I know my old school took theme days away from the elementary students because it is distracting and to give them something to look forward to when the get to jr. high and high school which I suppose makes sense but I'm sure they wish they got to be like the older kids like we always did.   And the student council used to keep track of which high school students didn't dress up and at the end of the week pep rally they held "court" where those students had to do something embarrassing.  That was banned because one student's parents complained about it being hazing.  Oh, the big "H" word...I do NOT condone actual hazing activities such as physical violence, forcing people to drink alcohol, offensive racial songs or activites or doing things that are dangerous AT ALL.  I was in a sorority and Justin was in a fraternity and, although you often hear news stories about the a$$holes who do those activities and end up really hurting people and making us all look bad I can say without hesitation that we did NOT do that stuff in our houses and we would never have hurt anyone and no one every hurt me or made me uncomfortable.  It was almost reversed and when we joined we were told repeatedly that if anything made us uncomfortable to leave, speak up, or anonymously call the national headquarters or the student activities coordinator on campus to report it.  And this was just about singing songs and joking around.  The older members said their "hazing", before all such activities were banned completely involved nothing more than wearing silly outfits and running around fraternities and campus at night and I always though that sort of thing seemed like it would have been fun.  The homecoming court of law in high school involved really silly things like drinking Powerade from a baby bottle and shooting free throws with a blindfold on.  Oh, the horror!  I really do feel like younger people are missing out on the joys of life by everyone being offended by everything. 

 

Well, anyway, that was quite a tangent.  Today was "inside out and backwards" day at preschool and I put Ben's shirt on backwards but he didn't like it but he did wear a pair of sweatpants inside out so you can see the pockets.  Hilarious. 

 

Guess what else I saw when I pulled out of the garage this morning...Yes indeed, the first snow!  It's already melted and this is perfectly normal for late October, but still...dang.