The Noodle, The Belt and The Schedule

This is a noodle. Many of you who are parents to kid beans will recognize it as a swim toy, cut in half. It's official name is a Noodle.

This is the belt. I mean, THE belt. The Black Belt. The one mom worked four years to get. This is actually the first black belt Mr. Karate ever wore. He gave it to mom to wear for six months.

See, since mom is a new black belt, she has a probationary period of six months. After six months mom will take a test. If mom passes, she will no longer be probationary and she will get to wear the special belt Mr. Karate bought for her. It has her name on it, and the karate school crest, because mom is a teacher, just like Mr. Karate. Mom is planning on passing the test. That's why she went to class today even though she was tired.

She wasn't quite so tired because she slept for close to ten hours and woke up feeling a whole lot better. Except that she had 25 minutes to get to class. She made it with a few minutes to spare. (Class is ten minutes away on a Saturday morning, more on a week night.)

Now the boy is working towards his black belt. He will start taking his test in January or February. When he gets his black belt, mom will give him the belt Mr. Karate gave her. But today, after the boy's class, they had this thing called "Noodle Wars".

Noodle Wars is when the kids and the teachers try to tag each other out by hitting your arms and legs with a noodle. Once your arm is tagged, you cannot use it any more. If both your arms get tagged, you must put the noodle under your armpit. If you leg gets tagged, you cannot use it. If both legs get tagged, you must go on your knees.

Not surprisingly, Noodle Wars is very competitive and very fast paced. You can get tagged and not realize it, until it gets pointed out to you pretty insistently. Many of the kids want to beat the teacher just because they are teachers. So it is a lot of fun. Mom is pretty good at it and she really doesn't like to lose. When she has the younger kids she often lets them win because they are so cute. With the older kids, like the boy, she's all business.

So that's Noodle Wars. As for the schedule, well, let's just say that mom survived and hit the bed early. Lucky was SUPPOSED to sit on mom's head this morning, but she got confused and climbed under mom's chin, so mom was using Lucky as a pillow. Didn't work, when mom saw the time (of 8:35 am) she pretty much flew out of bed, down the stairs and out the door.

Well, there's always Sunday morning.