A mess of potage (Go Cougars!)

My good friend Tara and her son are spending the weekend with us. Tara drove up from Arizona to attend classes from the very talented designer of my header, Alma Loveland, and to take in the BYU Homecoming football game. (It’s unfair that basketball doesn’t get homecoming festivities, isn’t it?) (And what about badminton?)

Tara scored a couple extra tickets to the game, and since we are such good friends, she didn’t bother to ask if I would like to go. (We decided last night the only way I’d voluntarily sit through a football game were if Brad Pitt — circa Legends of the Fall and Twelve Monkeys — held my hand).

So she invited Tom and Callie to go. Callie is the same age as her son, and it’s her birthday tomorrow (turning 6!) and Callie is also the only one of our girls to express an interest in team sports. (She scored her first goal in the soccer game last week!) Plus, Avery went to a Jazz game with Tom last year.

This morning Callie told me she didn’t want to go anymore; she wanted Avery to take her ticket.

Why?

“Avery says she’ll give me a birthday present if I let her go to the game.”

We told Avery that was unacceptable.

The girls did their breakfast dish chores and cleaned their rooms. I have lowered my expectations on the Saturday Morning Chores; today it was enough that I only had to ask Lucy five times (six would’ve necessitated some Very Bad Language) to pick up the Legos.

Avery vacuumed her room and Callie’s. I praised her extensively. Tom said, “Avery is being really helpful now; she was having a bad attitude earlier, but something’s changed, and she’s really working hard.”

Avery was brushing her hair in the bathroom and said Dad would find out why she was so changed soon enough.

Over lunch, Callie earnestly explained how she didn’t want to go, Avery had convinced her it would be boring.

(I couldn’t agree more, of course, but that wasn’t the point.)

Tom pointed out that if Avery really thought that she wouldn’t want to go. This level of psychology was a little sophisticated for our sweet, guileless almost-six-year old to grasp.

Callie went. Avery cried.

Then I started Wizards of Waverly Place on Netflix and told Avery she could watch as long as she held the baby.

I took a two-hour nap, showered, folded laundry, ate cookies. Avery agreed that nine episodes of tween hilarity were better than a football game.

Win, Win, and Win.