It's the little details that count

Joshua has recently taken an interest in drawing and coloring. He never cared for it much before. I don't know if it's because he has art once a week in school or if it is just an age or a stage or a phase...He started out drawing a lot of creatures with made up names but now, he is drawing more "real" things.

His current favorite thing to draw is an apple tree and a person with a basket who has been picking apples. His pictures started out pretty basic but are getting much more detailed...his apples now have stems, his trees now have branches, he added clouds and flowers, today he added an owl hole in the tree.

One day, he tore a sheet of paper into a triangle and said it looked like a piece of pizza. He colored the crust on the back and the edge crust on the front. He colored the cheese. He put green lines for green peppers and red circles for pepperoni. Then, he put brown lines where the cheese turned brown in the oven and red lines where you could see the sauce through holes in the cheese....very detailed.

In art class, he drew a picture of James Bond fighting a robot and also included Jaws with his big silver teeth. I thought it was very cute and a little funny. Most kinddergarteners probably draw people, trees, houses, puppies and kitties, Joshua draws James Bond and Jaws.

He may not be the most talented artist but he does put a lot of thought and details in his drawings.

Student of the Month

Congratulations!!! Your child has been chosen as an individual that has demonstrated growth, promise,and consistent excellence in character and/or behavior during the past month. In celebration of this achievement, you and your child are invited to attend a celebration breakfast. Please join us in the school cafeteria on __________ . We will have a delicious breakfast together while we recognize your son/daughter for helping to make _____ School a positive environment to learn in. We look forward to seeing you soon! Sincerely, The Positive Behavior Support Team

Yep, that's what the letter said. Joshua got off the bus, opened his backpack, handed me the letter. He was so excited. I don't know anything about Student of the Month. Do they choose one from every class? Do they choose one from every grade? There are 23 students in Joshua's class and there are 36 weeks in a school year, does every child get at least one turn? And, it's only the first month of school...Did they draw names out of a hat? Is it because he took the teachers candy one day? I guess later this week all my questions will be answered when I attend the breakfast (yummmmm, cafeteria food...I remember having hot glazed donuts and apple juice for breakfast in my highschool cafeteria).

It's really not that important how many or why they are chosen. What is important is that Joshua was chosen, I am extremely proud of him and he is proud too.

Hey neighbor, we're really not stalkers.

Scott and I have always kept pretty much to ourselves when it comes to neighbors. I like to be and like to have what I refer to as "Hey Neighbors," when you happen to pass each other on the road or otherwise, you throw up your hand to say "hey" and then you go on about your business. Well, since Joshua is getting older and the neighbors children are getting older and we spend a lot of time outside, I'm trying really hard get to know our neighbors, I guess.

I see the neighbor that lives two houses down quiet often. He is very sociable and will talk for as long as someone is listening. They have a 3 year old boy and a 1 year old girl. We were just hey neighbors and then when the 1 year old was born, we saw a bow on the mailbox and took them a gift, they brought us a thank you note, we now stop to chat a while when we both happen to be outside at the same time. We were even invited to the 1 year old's birthday party a few weeks ago. Joshua and I went and met a few more of our neighbors.

The family next door has a 7 year old girl and a 3 year old boy. We really don't see them very often, the kids are dvidently not outdoor kids. They do have swings in their backyard but we have never seen them out there. Joshua wants to peer through the woods all the time to see if they are outside. We were just hey neighbors until they were at the birthday party too.

The 7 year old girl just started 2nd grade and goes to the same school that Joshua goes to. At the time of the birthday party, school hadn't started yet so the mom and I had lots to talk about with my asking about school, teachers, riding the bus, etc. After the first week of school, Joshua began riding the bus home. He sits with the neighbor and the bus stop is at their driveway, which is right next to ours.

During the party, the mom also started talking about the church that their family goes to. I asked where it was, she told me, Joshua and I had been to the church a couple of times during the summer but we didn't see them there. So, I thought great! A Methodist church (what I have been looking for), locataed in Chatham County (where we live and Joshua goes to school and has the potential to meet schoolmates and make friends) and we know someone that attends (so Joshua can go to children's church without having me go too and will possibly even be up for trying out Sunday School). So, the very next Sunday we went. We sat beside the neighbors, Joshua and the girl went to Children's Church, after church, the kids ran around for a long time and neither wanted to leave.

This week, we left our ho uses at the exact same time to take our respective kid to school. I turned left on our road, our neighbor turned right on our road. I was curious as to what route she took to school. Then, when we got to school, I was turning into the carpool lane and she was pulling out of the carpool lane. Her way to go was definitely a lot quicker than mine! So, the next morning, we left at the exact same time. She turned right, I waited and then I turned right too.

So, in less than one month, we have gone from being "hey" neighbors to our kids going to the same school, our kids riding the bus home together, we might start attending their church on a regular basis and now, I changed my driving route to school to her driving route!

I hope we don't appear to be a crazed, maniacal family. Really, we're not stalking you....we only want to be

It's an all new soccer game

After a lackluster spring soccer session, I wasn't sure if Joshua wanted to play again or not. It really surprised me when he said yes. We signed him up and waited...

The first email comes, we have a new coach. This is our third soccer session, our third new coach. Coach Cindy was anticipating a work transfer, Coach Alex's daughter is now in the U8 league so he is coaching U8 soccer, Coach Ann is our new coach.

The second email comes, we have all new teammates. Last session, we had 4 kids in preschool, 4 kids in kindergarten. The kindergarten kids, if they are playing again, have moved up to U8, the preschool kids, if they are playing again, have moved to a different practice field located closer to their homes. I wasn't aware of the new field location choice, I just signed up for our regular field.

We haven't received uniforms yet so we may also be a new color. I know we will be a new name.

I wasn't sure what Joshua would think about all the new changes. I talked to him about it before we went to practice and he seemed ok with it. I told him the coach's name, read the list of teammates, he really surprised me by seeming not to care. He was sad that he was no longer playing with Matthew and Ryan though.

Monday night was practice. Joshua is the only kindergartener on the team and the only one who had previously played. I think it really made him feel good that he was older, experienced and a better player than the others. Last season, the older kids on his team really out played him and it hurt his confidence a lot...I think that may be one reason why he moped around so much during the spring session. The coach even told Joshua he was a great player and used him as the example in several of the practice routines.

Maybe all new will not turn out to be all bad....I'll let you know...

Did you ever wonder?

Do you ever see odd things lying in the middle of the road and wonder how they got there? Yesterday, while going to dinner, I saw and shoe in the road and wondered how it got there. Going back home after dinner, Joshua saw the shoe in the road and said "I just saw a girl's shoe in the road. What is it doing there?" I told him I guess someone lost it and asked what he thought. So, here are Joshua's thoughts on what may have happened.

1. She was riding in the back seat playing Princess and bad guy or something and she threw her shoe at the bad guy and it accidentally fell out the window.

2. She was riding in the car with her feet out the window and a shoe fell off.

3. She had stinky feet and someone threw her shoe out the window.

4. She took her shoes off before she went in the house and left them on the front porch. It was night and the dog was in the kennel but someone forgot to close the door. The dog sneaked outside and took the shoe and dropped in the road and then ran back inside and got in his kennel and no one knew he was gone.

They all sound like reasonable explanations to me. How do you think the shoe ended up in the road?

School lunches

Today, Joshua decided he wanted to take his lunch to school. I made him a roast beef and provolone cheese sandwich, his favorite. He got out some plastic containers, filled one with exactly ten grapes and four baby carrots and filled the other with an unspecified number of pretzels...I usually give him ten pretzels when he eats a sandwich so I wish I had asked him how many he packed. He didn't want to pack the grapes, carrots and pretzels in plastic sandwich baggies because the teacher told the class they had to throw them away, he wanted them in the plastic containers so he could bring them home...I guess he is being green...He has a plastic container for his sandwich because I hate a smooshed sandwich. He also packed a box of yogurt covered raisons for snack and a bottle of water. I told him he could buy his milk at lunch because I don't want to have to bother with a thermos or anything. He was very excited to be packing his own lunch in his Scooby Doo lunch box. The first two days at school, he bought his lunch...chicken nuggets, tater tots and peaches, then a hotdog, broccoli with cheese and something I can't remember.

All of this lunch business got me thinking of my own elementary school lunches. I have to say that my very favorite lunch in elementary school were cowboy hats, a slice of bologna topped with an ice cream scoop of mashed potatoes and a slice of cheese, broiled in the oven until the bologna curled, the cheese melted, and the shape resembled cowboy hats. Another favorite was pinto bean day with a slice of white bread in a bowl topped with pinto beans. When we buy bologna, I often make myself cowboy hats for lunch and I have been known to still eat pinto beans over a slice of white bread. Another favorite lunch was bacon slices and melted, shredded cheese on a hotdog bun. I do still eat a lot of bacon and cheese sandwiches, but never on a hotdog bun. I also have fond memories of what I call schoolhouse rolls. I loved the rolls. I can also remember Mark Phillips loved the rolls too, many of the kids would give Mark their rolls and he would eat an entire plate of rolls. I also remember having milk drinking races. Oh, and bringing Strawberry Quik mix in an old prescription medicine bottle to mix into milk.

I don't think we had choices in elementary school, I think we just ate what they gave us on the divided trays. We didn't have beverage choices other than milk. We didn't have any food choices until high school. We also didn't take our lunch unless it was a field trip day...taking lunch to school was not at all cool until after we had a big walk-out in high school to protest not having a long enough lunch period to get through the line and eat and then we went through a period of brown bagging as a form of protest. Now, I think it's the norm to do a combination of both.

So, next time you drink a glass of milk, see if you can remember your favorite elementary school lunch...and try not to laugh and spit milk out your nose...

Oh, and to go even further back, I can still remember the tuna casserole with peas and topped with crushed potato chips from Kindergarten.