School Aged Children

Having school aged children is busy, tiring, nerve wracking, time consuming, [Exhibit A: so far between Stu and I, we've forgotten to send certain colored shapes for both Ryann and Adam, forgotten to send "things" for Max to put in his "Life Book" which we understand to be some sort of scrapbook, and one day, we forgot to send a snack with Ryann], expensive, and oh-so-fun as you get to re-live your childhood school years listening to the things they come home with.

Here are a few things I've learned since the beginning of the 2011/2012 school year:

1. School hot lunch is a whole new proposition compared to when I was in school.  Exhibit A: The cost of a school lunch is $2.40.  Exhibit B: Here is the informational note on the lunch menu, sent home from school each month: "Rice, soy, skim, or choc skim milk is served with every meal. () indicates that gluten and allergy substitutes can be made with documentation on file.  Turkey (non-pork) [WTH is "pork turkey"?] and pork sausage patty are cooked separately.  * indicates that the item contains pork.  Soy peanut butter is available."

2. Ryann is quickly learning to read!  I have a print hanging in her bedroom that has a sparkly wand and crown on it and says "Crown".  Ryann asked me what it said last week and I suggested she sound the word out herself.  She'd taken off her glasses for me to clean them and said she couldn't make out the word without them on (which makes me so happy that we learned early that she was nearsighted and got her glasses before Kindergarten began!) but when she put them back on, she slowly sounded out C-R-O-W-N.  She was SO pleased with herself, it gave me the warm fuzzies :)

3.  Adam is crazy-hilarious and I bet his teachers laugh at him every day.  Exhibit A: The parents were told last week that part of the science corner in the classroom contained 10 cups with different scents in them.  The cups were covered with plastic wrap, rubber banded over the tops and there were holes poked in the wrap so the kids could smell each one and guess what the scent was.  During the van ride home, I asked Adam if he'd smelled the cups.  He said he had.  I asked him what he smelled.  He responded, "One smelled like teddy bears"  Aaah, the sweet smell of teddy bears?  Okkkk....  Exhibit B: I made a new recipe for dinner the other night.  It was a broiled sandwich with burger, onions, mustard, swiss cheese, and then roughly chopped (it was supposed to be minced but I don't have time to be mincing anything) chives.  Adam took a big bite of his sandwich, then looked down at it and asked, "Why is dere gwass on my sammich?"

4. There appears to be some serious teenage-like melodrama playing out in Max's first grade classroom.  Max (during a car conversation of course) shared with me that the smartest kid in his class "M" had a girlfriend "M" but that boy "M" broke up with girl "M" because boy "M"'s best friend "A" did not like girl "M".  Plus, Max editorialized, girl "M" does 'weird' things and is considered one of 'the weirdos' in class.  I suggested that he not refer to girl "M" as weird as that might hurt her feelings.  I asked Max to consider how he would feel if someone called him weird.  Then Ryann piped up, "Yeah, plus you'll hurt all the other weirdos feelings".  Yeah, once again, not sure that parenting nugget quite got across as it was supposed to.

5. Max and Ryann have learned to fly recently:

As you can see, in the background, Max was much impressed with Ryann's flight skills

Max's flight was fantastic, too

*disclaimer: my children cannot really fly and no children were injured during this impromptu (fly by the seat of my pants, if you will) photoshoot.

Here are a couple other saved up Snippets for y'all:

I am loving Zoe more and more every day.  I don't know if it's labradors or what the deal is but I swear she speaks English just like Rosko did.  I talk to her all the time and most of the time she understands what I'm telling her and complies.  She's fairly well-trained but it doesn't appear she went to any formal obedience schooling, yet the other day when she was pacing around, drooling like a faucet while the kids and I were eating dinner, Ryann barked at her, "Zoe!  Go lie down!"  Zoe dropped her head and ambled over to her kennel, climbed in, turned around and then lay down with her head and paws poking out the front of the kennel, looking wounded.

She often does this cute, little "pointing" manuever with her left, front leg

Ryann had recently decided she'd like to dress as a witch this Halloween but during yet another car conversation, she brought up her costume decision.  I asked if she'd still like to be a witch.  She responded, "No, I'm not sure I want to be a witch anymore.  But I can't be a car because I don't have wheels and I can't steer myself."  She's got great personal insight into her abilities and limitations.