I’m so excited! It is finally May! I didn’t think I would ever survive this school year, yet here we are, in the home stretch. May is always busy, even though we don’t even have anyone graduating this year. While it kind of breaks the rules and the idea behind the whole quick takes thing, (which I think is supposed to be about 7 things that aren’t quite a post in themselves.) I’m going to do an end of the school year post in seven sections. So SUE ME.
1. I listened to the younger moms today. It is always a mistake to do so, at least for me. I had to wait for a few kids in tutoring, and I saw a whole bunch of the kindergarten moms sitting together, so I went and joined them. Nice ladies, all of them, truly! But most of them had their oldest child in kindergarten, while my kindergartener is my seventh child. See a difference there? Our kindergarten children are currently working on a “Country Project” where they pick a country and do a report and then make a project – like a poster board that shows the things they learned about the country they studied. If your oldest child gets an assignment like this you get all excited and go buy craft supplies and glitter and make multiple trips to the library. If you are me, you lock yourself in a closet and compose an imaginary email to the teacher about how you are too old to have to do homework like this. Because that is what it is – parent homework. One of these moms went on and on about the country she picked and all the things she was going to put into the project. Do you see a problem here? It’s not a big deal, really. Let her have her fun. She said she would let her son glue the letters on the board after all, so it would still be his project. My poor kid. I may show her how to put a matte on a photo or two… nah, I’ll be honest, I won’t even do that. My husband is the official “project parent” in our house. This is his job.
Then the last day of school they will have a Country Party, where each kid will bring a food from their assigned country. And did I want to help out with that? Sorry. that is the same day that Preschool ends, I will be running like a chicken with my head cut off that day to get everyone at the right time. Whew, I just inched out of that one. (Lily is doing South Africa, since her sister went their last year. Posy mentioned that there was a lot of ketchup. So I guess we can bring that to the party.)
2. Spring Program Season is upon us. We have 7 to attend, two of which are happening at the same time. Anyone who tries to add things to my calendar in May generally gets their head bitten off. But it will be okay. I keep telling myself that. The busyness will end so very soon and then we will be stumbling out to the pool each morning and after dinner, wearing the kids out (and reducing the need for regular baths, Ha!) In the mean time we have nights like this when there was an extra practice, after having to wait around after school and so dinner was nachos with leftover chicken thrown on top. Not ideal. They were all looking at me like What? Is this dinner or the bedtimes snack? Did we skip dinner? Have you lost your mind? Whatever, it didn’t kill them. Get used to it, kids, there are more nights on the run ahead of us!
3. Looking at possible summer plans – and it is so hard not to do All. The. Things. But so far we have 4 things to go to per week. gymnastics on Monday and Wednesday, ballet on Tuesday and Thursday. That is not too bad. None of them require us to get out the door first thing in the morning, which is SO AWESOME. We may even go to the library if they will let me in the doors. I should have my own personalized parking space there for all the money I give them.
4. I bought some stuff, to help keep us busy and do some learning activities during the summer. I always end up getting too much, but I have been pretty restrained this year. We already had a bunch of good activities for the after school things we did during the school year, so we will just keep using those plus these:
642 Things to Write About: Young Writers Edition
Crayola Activity Center – because you can put worksheets in this little baby and then they use dry erase markers, So I think it will be very helpful! Which also meant we got extra markers – all the reviews said to ONLY use the Crayola dry erase markers, so I got plenty of those.
We always need more of these.
A journal for Molly, with room to draw. (Since we had 642 things to write about, after all.) The other kids get regular composition notebooks, although I might go back and get one for Lily.
And while I was shopping for those, I found a really good deal on these:
and these:
which always provide some hours of fun.
5. And speaking of sidewalk chalk – I just discovered a new use for it: poetry practice. Actually my kids figured this out when their school let them graffiti up the place with dry erase markers on the windows and chalk on the sidewalks. Their school was filled with poetry and beautiful quotes during a special even last week. So Monday night when I came home from a meeting, I was greeted by this:
It was an appropriate choice for my day, too, when I had certainly burned my candle at both ends.
6. In other news, my second article was posted at CatholicStand.com this week. My Lazy Conversion. Go check it out!
7. I am still waiting for my copy of Jen’s book Something Other Than God to arrive. Shame on Amazon for taking so long on this one. Next time I want to get an Ignatius Press book on the first day I will order it straight from them! ( I just want to add that if you search on Amazon, and enter “something <space>” Something Other Than God is the first specific item on the list, and Something Wicked This Way Comes is the second on the list.)
That’s all for me! Go see Jen for more Quick Takes!