Category Archives for School

School’s Out for Summer! (boohooooo?)

Yesterday was Aliya and Adlani’s last day of school and I had some last-day business to take care of so I ended up picking them up at noon dismissal.  I remember the last day of school from waaaaaaaay back in the 70’s…taking home all the crap that had accumulated, washing the desks, and getting ready to do nothing for 2+ months.  And when I say “do nothing,” I mean DO NOTHING.  Although I did go to camp a few times for a week, we didn’t have the summer schedules that most families have now.  We mostly just hung around the house playing with rocks and sticks.  Still, the last day of school was exhilarating!

So it was completely unexpected to be standing in the school lobby, and have lines of sobbing kids passing by.  I guess it’s a good sign that they love their teachers, but it’s SUMMER VACATION, for crying out loud!  Time to have fun!  Sleep late!  Camp out!  Swim!  Make S’Mores!  Not to mention the fact that these kids can communicate with each other and even with their teachers so much easier than we could.  When I was a kid we had a party line…for those who haven’t experienced a party line, we shared our phone line with a neighbor.  We could tell who the call was for based on the ring.  Sometimes when we picked up the phone to call out, they were already using it.  We lived out in the boonies so we couldn’t walk or ride our bikes to our friends’ houses, and we didn’t have a computer.  There was no Facebook or email.  Maybe I should have been the one sobbing back then.

So the year-end frenzy is over…the teachers’ gifts have been delivered, everything that needed to be picked up from school or returned to school is checked off the list, and summer has begun.  And I will tell you after Day 1, somebody is getting medicated – either me or them.

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Aliya had Señora MacKay for a summer program 2 years ago, and she was hoping and praying to have her as her teacher. She lucked out and had her for 3rd grade, and she absolutely loves her. She’s like a little clone. When Aliya was talking about who she hoped to have for 4th grade, she said, “It doesn’t really matter who I have, because I can make any teacher love me.”  Now that’s confidence.

Here’s a photo of Adlani with the blanket I made for his teacher’s baby, Ravi.  Adlani has been checking with me every day to see if it was ready.  When the blanket was about 2 inches wide, he asked if he could take it to school.  His rationale was that Ravi wouldn’t be that big when he came out, so a 2-inch wide blanket would be just fine.

And here’s Adlani’s note to his teacher.  In case you don’t speak First Grade, it says “Hi Señora Jeyadame.  I am going to miss you.  And I want you to have a nice time with Ravi.  Gracias para todo.  Te quiero.  Adlani”

In case you missed it on Facebook, here’s Adlani’s video message to his teacher, along with his reading demonstration.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoob5kjPP38?rel=0&w=560&h=349]

Bye Bye BLOCKS! :-(

Everyone keeps telling me that time flies and kids grow up too fast, but I think this might be the first moment I’ve felt like they might be right.  I’m always so focused on the 8 jillion things that I’m supposed to be doing, and time sneaks up on me.  After 4 years at Blocks Preschool (2 for Adlani, 2 for Norah), we’re all done.  While Norah and I are both excited that she’s headed for kindergarten, and I’m looking forward to some time off from my part-time PTO job, we’re sad to be leaving the school.  It’s the BEST, and we have loved everything about it, especially the fabulous teachers.

Luckily, Norah’s teacher is going to be tutoring her in Spanish so it’s just “Hasta luego!”

Red-Eyed Tree Frog, Take II

What I’m about to say is going to further tarnish my mom-putation.  Oh well, I’m not winning any mother-of-the-year awards anyway.  In fact, Adlani recently screamed at me, “YOU’RE NO MOM!  YOU’RE A MONSTER!!”  For some reason I take pleasure in being called a monster.

So…it’s that time of year again, when along with the rest of the year-end frenzy, the kids prepare for the big research fair.  I’m not a fan.  There, I said it.  I don’t mind the actual fair itself, which is when parents spend an hour talking to the kids about their projects.  It’s the preparation that gets to me.

Call me crazy, but I think a first-grade project should be whatever a first-grader is capable of.  If he fashions a lump of clay into what he thinks looks like a frog, done.  Maybe there’s a benefit to having the first-grader sit for hours with Mom and Dad, making a diorama of a Siberian Spotted Salamander’s habitat, but when it comes to our family, those moments together always seem to lead to some sort of family strife.

This year, Adlani’s project was a red-eyed tree frog, and he was dead-set on making a tree frog out of clay for his project.  I don’t know why he couldn’t have picked a snake, which I’m pretty sure I could have made out of clay fairly easily (or out of a stocking like one of our friends).  He could also have chosen to stick some photos of the frog on a piece of posterboard, draw a picture, or hell, even go to Petco and BUY a red-eyed tree frog.  But nooooooo…he had to make one out of clay.

We’ve had a lot going on the last couple of weeks, so even though Adlani was reminding me daily about the frog, I hadn’t had a chance to go buy the clay, paint, etc. until Sunday.  On Monday (Memorial Day), we spent at least 3 hours making the most beautiful clay frog you’ve ever seen.  You’ll have to take my word for it.  The project was due Tuesday, so I drove the kids to school, carried the frog carefully to his classroom, and put it waaaaay back in the corner behind the other projects.  I almost took a picture of it before we left the house, but we were running late and I literally said, out loud, “I’ll just take a picture of it at the research fair.”

Tuesday afternoon, Adlani got off the bus with this:

That’s it.  After my head exploded, Adlani told me that he had accidentally dropped the frog while they were practicing doing their presentations for the parents, and Señora Jeyadame said, “It’s ok, just make another one by Thursday morning.”

Huh?  It’s Tuesday after school, I’m a single mother because Ben’s still receiving visitors who have come to his sister’s house to pay their respects.  Adlani and Aliya have soccer practice, and I have hired a babysitter so I can finally go back to Zumba after 5 long weeks of town meeting.  Wednesday afternoon I’m supposed to go to my office (which didn’t happen because of the tornado), and then Night #2 of my Zumba reentry.  There is no 3-hour time period in my schedule to make another frog.

Needless to say, Frog #2 did not take us 3 hours.  We had the replacement shaped within about 20 minutes, let it dry, and slapped on some paint.  Here’s Frog #2, and don’t ask me what Adlani is so friggin happy about at 7:30 in the morning.  That just doesn’t seem right.

Thankfully, Aliya’s projects have gotten a lot easier, because she does just about everything herself.  She tried to convince me on Monday that she had to make a clay model of the Iditarod, but I didn’t fall for it.  If she really needed one, she would have been bugging me multiple times daily to help her with it.

Good luck to anyone else who’s in the year-end frenzy right now!

#19of365 – Snow Delay

7″ of snow today, more due tomorrow and school is already canceled.  The buses are having a heck of a time getting around because the roads are so narrow and then there are the parked cars (the truck above is parked), trash bins, etc. to deal with.  Yesterday I came very close to being creamed by a bus – I’m honestly not sure how I didn’t get hit.  I saw our bus come around the corner in my rear-view mirror, so I whipped open my door and jumped out because she always stops right behind my car.  Except that it turned out to be a different bus (ours was late), so he blew on past me.  If I had jumped out a little quicker there’d be no more LockMommy.

#15of365 – Honk Critique

It’s tough to tell from this photo because I took it during the director’s critique of the dress rehearsal, but Aliya loves Drama Club.  Adlani does too, although I think his presence sometimes makes the director want to disband the club.  Their performance of Honk is coming up in a week and a half, and they have missed so many rehearsals because of snow days that I’m just hoping they can pull it off.