| on Monday April 14, 2008 |
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 Hell week came and went and I am happy to say that I survived with my sanity. Many of you out there are scratching your heads asking, "Joeprah, what is hell week?" Let me define it for you:
Hell Week: Any week in a parent's life when they have over 25 hours of scheduled extra curricular activities for their kids. Our H.W. consisted of 11 practices and 3 recitals. Legendary, epic, friggin' insane are all things people say to describe the week I just lived through. Let me start by saying my week wasn't horrible in the traditional sense of the word, but in many ways it was just that. I suppose it is probably best to just set this up for you via a day by day play by: Monday: Piano practice and my oldest daughter's birthday party (also my mom's birthday). We managed, somehow, to go from cake and ice cream to a full blown dinner for 10. We typically, for our daughters' birthday, allow them to choose what's for dinner, our oldest being super smart chose crab legs and steak...sigh. Click the picture below for the better version. Tuesday: A day off from practices. Cleaned up after the night before. Tuesday was nice. We all went to sleep early. Period. Wednesday: Dance Practice for our 5 year old, Extended Choir Practice for our oldest (our now 8 year old), dance practice for our 8 year old. Thankfully, we had some help from my dad and some close friends or we could have never coordinated the three practices simultaneously. My headache started that afternoon. Thursday: Choir Practice for our oldest, dance practice later that evening from 7:00-9:30 (!!?) for both our older daughters. Thursday ushered in the fact that I was entrenched in Hell Week. I feasted on fast food with my daughters as we drove around town in our bad ass minivan (B.A.M.). The BAM is completely disgusting as of right now and I can't wait to post a movie demonstrating the effect of Hell Week on a usually semi-filthy minivan. Friday: Same as Thursday except my headache was way worse. Three practices. Friday, how can I say this except if I ever hear the song Fabulous ever again--it will be too soon. Saturday: Recital #1. Our middle child couldn't attend our oldest daughter's choir recital because she  had to go to an all day dance practice. She left for a neighbor's house at 10:45am and from there the rest of us went to the choir recital. The recital was short and sweet (about an hour). Although it didn't run too long our youngest daughter forced me into my familiar place during functions that require discretion--the hallway. I don't mind the hallway of shame, mostly because our daughters have always been so cute. After the choir recital I decided to take one for the team--I agreed to sit through the rest of dance practice. First, we went home and my oldest daughter quickly changed, then I took my place in an auditorium that had more estrogen than the national scrapbooking convention. I arrived at dance practice at 2:00pm and returned home at 5:30pm forever changed. *Pictures are clickable* Saturday was ridiculous; my headache was on steroids at this point. We all need a nap when I got back from the mother of all dance practices. Instead of much needed sleep, I toiled in our back yard and crushed three separate ant nests into oblivion--score Me - 3, Ants - 0. Still we did enjoy the choir recital and although we were exhausted and my head was throbbing, the light at the end of the tunnel was beginning to shine off in the distance.  Sunday: Dance recitals. Our town turns out for the rec council's dance program functions like no other town on Earth. If you aren't waiting outside the high school an hour before the doors open--you may not get a seat. The auditorium holds aproximately 1000 people and each year the seats disappear faster and faster. The recital last about 3 1/2 hours and it is well known that the recital makes folks hungrier than any other event ever recorded in the history of mankind. Time virtually stands still inside that auditorium and our daughters performance were 17th and 22nd respectively out of 22. This year, we arrived a smidge late to be considered early so we took our place in a line that wrapped around the length of the high school--at least my wife did. I parked the car and walked my way over to the school when I pulled a manuveur I would like to call the  weasel. I was walking past the entrance to the highschool with my youngest, on my way to where my wife was in line (about a quarter mile away, rotting in a line of unimaginable length), when the front doors to the highschool opened. Stealthly, I managed my way into the line I was walking by and managed to be one ofthe first people in the auditorium. I did not, however, take advantage of my position of power.  I simply reserved ten seats in the back of the auditorium and waited for my wife and our people (parents, sibblings, aunts & uncles) to show up. How do you reserve ten seats when you are just one person and a little girl--one word--strategy. You need to spread things out over those ten seats and always remain standing or appear about to stand to anyone coming near your seats. You become a mother bird protecting their ground nest from curious onlookers. That's textbook. One thing I totally slept on was wipes. Have you ever been somewhere and you realized that you forgot wipes. We are out the diaper stage now, but wipes come in handy for sticky fingers and when you have a very particular little princess of a three year old. The recital was long and ridiculous to behold, but at least I wasn't this guy...
...somehow he managed to get talked into being Charlie Brown for one of the performances (see crazier than a mo). He is a friend of mine so that makes it 'Ok' to make fun of him, that's just how it works when you're a dude. As for the dance, it was crazy long and the best dances are always the tiny kids. Our daughters were predictably amazing in their dances and here they are in their costumes before the show: I can't stand seeing make-up on our little girls' faces--I keep telling myself it was only for one day. Thankfully, I stocked up beer and wine and had a great Sunday night full of pizza and alcohol. I bid fare ye well to the dance season and I gladly welcome our spring and summer activities. Have you ever had a "Hell Week?" Are all your weeks "Hell Weeks."
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I had to pass on a bit of news to my loyal readers about something very exciting in the land of Joeprah. It may not seem like a big deal to many, but for me--it's huge. I have a place on the Examiner.com as the National Fatherhood Examiner. What does that mean? It means I get to expose my smart ass self to a larger audience and as a bonus I get to champion common sense parenting for a large media outlet. I plan on delivering some articles from Joeprah on my National Fatherhood Blog, but I will also feature some articles there that can only be found there. This makes all those times that my wife was like, "Why can't you stop blogging tonight and watch (insert horrible chick flick title here, if you can't think of one Coyote Ugly will suffice) with me?" and I was all like, "Sorry, this is important." seem somewhat realistic. If you care to make my day/week/month/year, why don't you stop by my new home and say hi, you'll be glad you did.
Who is Joeprah? I am a stay at home dad to three daughters. I have an amazing wife and under the direction and encouragement of close friends I started this site over a year ago. You can follow me at The 
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