School Adventures

The school year is coming to an end soon, and I think it's been a great year.

Cascade View Elementary.  Wonderful school.  It looks kind of like a prison in this picture, especially with the upcoming downpour.  This is the path I take almost every afternoon to pick Graysen up, sometimes with Katherine and sometimes without, according to whether Elise is home to keep her.  She does not like that walk.  Sometimes in weather like this, I don't either!

Graysen has loved it from the beginning and goes in every day eager to see her friends and see what's happening.  As extra learning periods, she has music on Mondays, art on Tuesday, PE on Wednesdays, computers on Thursdays, and coding on Fridays.  I'm not sure I have those days correct, but they're all things she's very excited about.  I don't even know what coding is.  According to her teacher, PE is the one she excels in.  Not surprised.

She knew none of the boys and girls in her class the first day, but now they're all just like a bunch of puppies, tumbling around and hugging and laughing.  A couple of the boys, Nick and Carter, live nearby, and they've run into each other at the park a few times, and Shradda lives just across the street.  The twins and Madison and her sister live close to me, and we're going to work on getting them together at various times to play.  One friend of Graysen's, Harper, has a little sister in Katherine's class, Ellis, and their nanny and I are very interested in letting them play this summer.  I don't think Katherine and Graysen play at school, but they're both Paw Patrol freaks, so I think they will do just fine.  Wynn also has a little sister a little older than Katherine and live near them, so that's another potential playtime.

Mrs. Boyles is just Graysen's favorite person in the world (next to her mom and dad), and she can't have had a better fit as a teacher.  At the parent-teacher conferences, she has been very positive to Ryan and Emily about Graysen too.

She took an after-school art class on Tuesday also - clay.  She absolutely loved it and made some cute things.   I took these pictures at pick-up time the last day, and they were kind of crazy.

Acadia (named after the park in Maine, her dad said) is a first grader who went to Rooster Valley with Graysen and also dance class, so they know each other pretty well.

Last two projects.  The gnome house had baking instructions, but I don't know if it's been baked yet.

During April, we started getting announcements about the Kindergarten Musical.  I would ask Graysen every once in a while if they were practicing any songs, and she always looked blank.  Finally, the Monday before the Thursday night program, she told me walking home that they were going to have a play for parents but that she was pretty anxious about it.  I asked why, and she said, "I don't know what's going on."  She said it was no songs, just music.  She didn't talk about it any more until Thursday walking home when I asked her if they had to wear any costumes, and she said, "We need to wear things without writing to distract the parents."  And that she had a big bow that she could wear in her hair or around her neck like a tie or anywhere.  But still couldn't tell me or sing me any of the songs.

We didn't know what to expect, but I, of course, wouldn't miss it!  Emily also could get no information from her.  I was to walk up and meet them, and Emily texted me and told me they were saving me a seat.  We were about midway back and didn't have a good view (and Katherine was hopping back and forth on our laps), so I didn't take any good pictures.  They all marched out by class and were introduced, and everyone yelled and clapped.  Graysen was right in the middle on next-to-the-back row and did spot us.  I'm kinda glad she didn't decide to wear her bow on her head.  I'm not sure where hers is.

Just a short bad video that may or may not appear.

The little play was super cute though with lots of catchy songs.  I still have Stone Soup running through my head several times a day.  I'm not sure any of the kids knew all the words, but some of them knew enough of them to make it really cute.  They were very enthusiastic too!

It was such a good feeling sitting there being a part of it all and having Graysen run up and give me a big hug afterwards.  I realize how lucky I am to get these opportuities, and I just eat them up.  It was also interesting to me how many people I now know that waved or greeted me that I didn't have any idea of before this year.  There's something about standing around waiting for kids in the afternoons that force people to interact and enjoy one another.  Then when I walked home on that beautiful afternoon, I ran into two different people from the apartments walking their dogs and stopped and talked to them and then had a conversation with a young guy from NC who lives near me.  In one building, out of the 6 apartments, the South is represented in 3 of them - GA/AL, NC, and VA.  We graviate toward that accent, I guess.  

I just kept on walking through downtown and didn't really want to go in.  The air smelled so fresh, like fresh-cut grass and flowers, with a faint aroma of Uncle Si's Pizza coming through.  Such a nice safe place to walk.  The NC guy Ben says he walks across the Parkway to Safeway in the middle of the night if he wants to.  I'm pretty sure I'm not going to go out that late, or even cross the parkway on foot, for that matter.

Graysen "posing" in her not distracting to parents dress after the play.

Katherine and Rooster Valley.

This baby did not want to go to school this year.  Not that she hated the idea.  She had just rather stay home in her pajamas and do what she wanted to.  After a few hard mornings, though, she settled in to tolerating it.  And then actually enjoying it.  She's just like a sponge at this age, soaking up songs and stories and facts and loving crafts and snacks.

One thing Emily and I didn't exactly worry about but felt sad about was that when we picked her up in the afternoons, she was usully sitting by herself just watching the others play.  When we asked, she couldn't name another person except Porter, and he played with the boys, and James, another friend, who also played with the boys.  She said she just didn't want to play and didn't seem sad about it herself.

Then one day she discovered the DIRT PILE, and her life (and ours) has not been the same since.   She has had a friend named McKenna that is the only girl she knew by name, but this week, there have been 4 little girls who seem to compete as to how dirty they can get.  I took this picture Monday and shared it with the teacher, and we agree that they look like the old 40s pictures of migrant worker children from the depression

Especially in this version:

McKenna, the second from the right, had a birthday party yesterday, and Emily said all the girls were there (clean, hopefully) and that this picture had become famous after I showed it to their teachers.

She comes out covered in dirt and whatever snacks they've had that day and stops to empty her boots and make dirt puffs with her clothes.

She says this is toothpaste.  So I guess she started off like that this morning.  No questions.  Just go with the flow.  Those leggings could be inside out.  She wore her dress backwards one day, and no one noticed until I started thinking she looked like she was choking.

 One day when Elise wasn't home to keep her, Katherine had to go with me to kindergarten to pick up Gray.  I had scrubbed her face as much as she would allow, and she was already mad at having to go to the school.  The hands though.  And the clothes.  I feel like I need to explain her appearance, but I don't think anyone cares.  Like Emily says, "It's a farm school."

They not only have the new baby chicks but a couple of adorable ducks.

The big chickens.  They all have names, but I don't know them personally.

And a new pair of pygmy goats, Buttons and Bows, who are too cute for words.  They are so spoiled that every afternoon when the children go home and they have to go to their pen, they cry for them like babies.

Wheelbarrow riding.

Our resident pet, Layla, or whatever her name is this week, counts on being in the center of everything that's going on.

Elise found a video for the girls one day, and they were watching it, but Layla couldn't stand not being right with them.

She gave me a make-them-let-me-play look.

And kept on until she was right in the middle of them.

The Kindle Fire (or the pink iPad, as the girls call it) is probably their favorite thing ever and the cause of lots of squabbles (since there's just one and since their parents and I don't like a lot of screen time).  We have to set the timer for equal time, and it's been known to be withheld for not following the rules.  I came home one day to see this.  Layla pretending she had not been playing.

Hmmm.  It just happened to be right here in front of me.

And giving up on finding her videos of fish and birds.

One night when she kept crying at Elise's door (not allowed in there because of plant destroying), I called her to my bed and played a mouse video.  It kept her busy for a while, but then she kept pausing it, so I turned on cat purring sounds, and she curled up, took a bath, and went right to sleep.  Both of us.  

The trip to St. George's is coming up soon!  We leave Friday to fly to Tallahassee and will stay in Apalachiacola until the house is ready on Saturday.

Those steps!  I think I see my chair right up there on the right.  Good view of the beach and perfect for reading and drinking coffee.






We had such a good time here two years ago.  We'll be missing a few people this year though:  Keith, Sherry and David and Dina and Gaby.



Graysen remembered the TV where Aunt Kathy introduced them to Bubble Guppies.




This kitchen will not see the wonderful meals like the ones Dina and Gaby treated us to before.  I know for sure we won't be having fried plantains for breakfast or those decadent chocolate desserts or the Guatemalan coffee that was soooo good.  And we won't have the butternut whoopie pies Sherry and David brought.




This is my only blog entry from that trip.  I'm sorry I didn't write more or remember more, but it was a hard trip, and this upcoming one I'm having mixed emotions about too.

The girls are older and will be easier to travel with, I hope.  It's not fun for babies and little kids to have those 5-hour flights and about that long a drive to get back and forth to the airports.  They did great then, and Katherine celebrated her second birthday there.  This year she will be four!  They'll be able to get themselves back and forth down those stairs a little easier.  I'll just have to look the other way.


Lots to do between now and then.