Super Bowl 2015

First, let it be said.  Ours is not a football house.  I played football in the backyard with my dad as a kid, but that's about as much as I ever paid attention to the sport.  The girls watch the Super Bowl every year, but so far it always aired on Sunday night during movie night and provided an excuse to eat Pizza Rolls and drink Grammy's slush punch.

Now, Dave is a football fan.  In fact, Dave is a bit of a renaissance man when it comes to sports.  This is not to say that he excels at all sports.  But he will play and converse about any of them.

Me, I don't follow any.  I enjoy the last three minutes of a KU basketball game, but to me every sports interview ever sounds exactly the same.  We sportsed our best and scored points, but the other team was sportsing, too, and they scored even more points. 

Still, I get a kick out of the Super Bowl.  So when I learned that @america would host a free Super Bowl party from 6:00am this morning until the game ended at 10, I couldn't think of a good reason not to go.  When I learned they would have a free donut table at the party, I was sold.  The girls did not go to school this morning.  We still woke up at 5:45am.  But instead of boarding the school bus, we sat through an hour to traffic to watch the Super Bowl live on a big screen with 200 middle-aged Indonesian strangers.

I get a real kick out of @america, this multi-media center in a fancy mall in Jakarta meant to promote American culture.  What a better place to watch the Super Bowl!  I'll admit, I didn't stop to think about who else would be there.  And when I walked into the room with my three little girls and saw the four of us as some of the only females in the entire room, I began to regret my choice and my children clung to me like they had suction cups for fingers.  Now a small mass of myself and little girls, I found a seat on the front row and began to wonder why I had done this.  My girls never watch football.  I don't think any of them even know the basic rules.  They never played football in the backyard with my dad.  And they're more likely to swim or go for bike rides with their own dad.  Why was I bringing them into a crowd of dedicated sports fans to watch something they don't understand?

Providentially, we arrived just in time for Katy Perry's halftime show.  Katy Perry is a superstar in our home, and all three girls sat transfixed through her performance.  When it finished, I gave them the choice.  Do you want to watch the rest of this game?  We could leave right now, and go back to school.  They were all in agreement.  If I get to miss math and bahasa class, I will absolutely watch the rest of this football game.

And watch they did!  Lilly paid close attention, never asking one question.  Annika made friends with the person next to her, who gave her popcorn.  Sophia sat on my lap while I provided a play-by-play for her, helping her to keep her eyes on the ball as it traveled back and forth across the screen.  My narration helped me to focus on the game, too.  So that when it became truly exciting in the last quarter, I was already paying attention.

We didn't leave until we ate a total of 8 donuts and the clock had run down.  And although it may not have been a typical setting, I'm pretty pleased with how we watched the game.

Postscript:  After I got home, I learned that I was not at all alone.  A sizable number of friends and neighbors took the day off from work to watch the game this morning.  And mine were not the only kids missing math class today, either.  Maybe while abroad, the US ought to make the Super Bowl a national holiday.  A national expatriate holiday!