how Jafta spent ski week

  Last week was ski week for Jafta’s school – a week between winter break and spring break when Orange County students are off from school so that they can go visit their bourgeois mountain cabin and hit the slopes.  I am more than a little annoyed by ski week, especially since despite what may be portrayed on tv, Orange County is actually comprised of a wide variety of middle-class folks, most of whom won’t be skiing during ski week.  Jafta heard about ski week at school, and started to talk about how excited he was to go skiing, so I had to sit him down and explain that despite it’s description, we would not, in fact, go skiing, because mommy and daddy have jobs, and the preschoolers are still in preschool, and because WE DON’T SKI.  He was disappointed, because he was quite sure that all of his classmates would be skiing.  I highly doubt this to be true, but the kid has a flair for the dramatic that is so similar to mine that it may well solve the nature vs. nurture debate. Anyways, we had to have a serious conversation with Jafta about his expectations fr the week, since neither of us could  blow off our regularly scheduled commitments, especially since he has spring break coming up, along with an entirely different week of spring break for the other kids. I explained that he would have to be flexible while I got some work done, and that it might be a mellow week but that he should just enjoy being home without the younger kids.  But despite our lectures about lowered expectations, Jafta did manage to have a pretty epic ski week. On Sunday, Mark took the kids hiking with grandpa in the foothills.  On Monday, all the kids had no school and we went up to Los Angeles to  a party for the new PlayStation Vita, where Jafta got to play video games and eat Fresh Brother’s gluten-free pizza to his heart’s content. Mark has been taking tennis lessons, and he let Jafta have his spot on Tuesday morning.  We may not be skiing, but at least we found an alternate bourgeois activity. Later, Jafta and Mark took out the new canoe. (The canoe, and it’s presence in our lives, is a story for another post.) Loose seal!  Look out for loose seal!  (Or Sea Lion. Whatevs). Jafta also got to have two playdates with his best friend Ryder and big brother Alex. They started a band, but conflict over who would be the lead singer led to a hasty breakup.  So cliché.   This week also meant Jafta and I got to have lunch at some of the places we love that the younger kids would never tolerate.  That’s a $7 bag of kale chips that I thought we could share.  He ate it in about 5 minutes while I waited for my smoothie. On Friday, we got to take a tour of the Star Wars exhibit at the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana.  Jafta and Kembe are huge Star Wars fans, so they loved seeing all of the memorabilia from the movies.  If you are in Orange County, it’s definitely worth a visit.  Star Wars is on display until mid-April. Jafta also got to spend an evening with his cousins from Seattle, who were visiting, and had a morning at the skate park with his favorite sitter while I had a thrilling date with my allergist.  In all, I think he did alright for a week of lowered expectations. As I was whining about ski week, my mother reminded me that my own school got a week off for the Silver Spurs Rodeo.  Does your child have ski week, or something similar?