Lest you think I'm sitting around crying in my muffins, Part 2

Sonar X3 in the kinder, acting shy. Dead camera batteries prevented a companion picture of Sonar X5.  Apparently I am photographically challenged this week.  

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Yesterday at lunch, I took up my room parent duties and hauled special snacks and gift bags up to Sonar X5’s class.  Sonar X3 (who shall be named thusly for the very last time today) joined me and proceeded to hide in the classroom library the whole time, apparently undone by the unpredictably giddy behavior of the kindergartners.  I don’t blame him.  

To make sure that the very last nerve of the teacher was completely frayed by the end of the day, each child was belled and filled up with pizza and cupcakes.   

In an effort to burn off the sugar high the children played musical chairs, danced (that “Tony Chestnut” song is hilarious), and then wobbled slinkies all around the room.  then we crammed all of their collective loot into their backpacks and sent them out to parents, frosting still smeared on their cheeks.  

Good fun was had by all.  

Lest you think I'm sitting around crying into my muffins, Part 1

Note:  This was supposed to be a recent picture of Sonar X8 in his Christmas getup.  For some reason that other one won’t load.  So instead you get this delightful substitute from five-hundred years ago.  He’s still this cute sometimes.  

Sonar X8 and his classmates have recently read The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo.  Lovely book.  Like many good books, especially ones for children, this one has been made into a movie, which opens in U.S. theaters today.  

Today also happens to be the last day of school before the two-and-a-half week Winter Holiday, and an early dismissal day at that.  The classes are having their holiday parties and puzzle exchanges and chaos-inducing whatnot.  

The third grade teachers decided that the coincidence of all of these things—book, movie, party day—was just too much to pass up and gave a call to our lovely, independently-owned, local movie theater and arranged a nine a.m. screening of The Tale of Despereaux for the entire third grade.  

To make this work, the third graders are having a holiday breakfast, and skipping the holiday assembly (a performance of Christmas standards by the fourth graders).  First thing this morning, they got hopped up on donuts, candy canes and cookies (and yes, milk, OJ, and pigs in a blanket), then 120 third graders and their teachers and aides boarded yellow dogs to drive a half mile to the theater.  

(I wonder about the choice to use buses for this trip, since the buses have to drive about a half mile from the school to the theater, but if the kids walked through the municipal park between the school and theater, they’d have to trek about a quarter of a mile.  Perhaps they were worried about the weather.  Or potential escapees.  No telling.)  

As we speak, Sonar X8 and his classmates are among the first children to see the new film, a fact that they giggled about so deliciously, as if they were getting away with something.  While at the theater, they’ll get a fresh injection of popcorn and soda and then go back to school for a nutritious lunch.  Ha.  

Supposedly the teachers are going to haul them all back to the classrooms after that for some kind of “Compare and Contrast” activity.  Should they attempt this activity (as opposed to sending them outside for recess for the rest of the day) I think they might need to be certified.  Should they succeed, I think I’ll have to send them a bottle of bourbon to sooth their frayed nerves.  

Luckily they’ll have sixteen, third-grader-free days to recover.  

Many thanks

I am, perhaps, a few days late on my thankfulness list here, but I think it’s probably ok to be thankful on other days of the year besides Thanksgiving Day.  I am thankful for a lot of things this year, and every year, but I’ll focus for the sake of brevity.

I am thankful for my Partner, who is not only warm and sexy, but knows just exactly how to make me feel good.  He’s also a handy reader of books, happy to discuss whatever he’s reading or I’m reading in ways that are fun and thoughtful.  

I am thankful for Sonar X3, who not only has a lovely spot of quiet time every afternoon, but is among the cutest readers on the planet.  He has proven to me that reading need not be a sedentary activity, and can be accomplished quite well while rolling back and forth on the floor.  

I am thankful for Sonar X5, who, besides being a pretty adorable reader himself, is also capable of working out puzzles in the most delicious way.  Something in that brain of his just seems to ‘get’ puzzles in a way that I think is fabulous.  His patience is also a good model for all of us.

I am thankful for Sonar X8, who last night begged to stay up to finish a book, not because he had to for school or something, but because he was “this close” and he just had to know how it turned out.  Susceptible to this urge myself now and then, what could I do but say yes?  And though I often grouch at it, the bouncy, indirect way he moves through the world gives me a little joy when I can remember to lighten up.  

There is something so incredibly ingenious about the acquisition of reading skills and I am so thrilled and giddy to be able to witness this process in my children.  I laugh and tell them that the world won’t be the same now that they can read.  They look at me askance, and roll their eyes, of course, but that’s ok.  Someday I hope they can watch someone else learn to read and to know the sheer joy of it.  

We had a lovely Thanksgiving celebration with family.  There was good food, fun games, and just the right number of days cramped together with extended family.  A field mouse tried to join us for dinner, I finished a kilt sock (pictures soon), and whether she realizes it or not, my mother-in-law made me feel like I was one of “hers,” a feeling that makes me feel warm and happy.  

If you had the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving recently, I hope it was survivable at least—though cozy and full of love would be better.  

I'm a Winner, Baby

Day 25:  50,347

And just in time for me to head out of town to eat too much and watch too much football on television with my in-laws.  Oh, and knit too much.

Here is Sonar X5 and his classmates demonstrating the new post-Thanksgiving fitness craze, the Tootie Ta.  If you don’t know this source of kindergarten hi-larity, check it out on You Tube.   

Rituals

Day 22 — 45,403 and counting

When I say that I like Friday night high school football in Texas, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.  I’m not some rabid, season-ticket holder, though I go to most home games (at least through halftime).  The only school shirt I own is a hand-me-down.  I’d mostly rather see the band than the football team (but then I was a band geek).  I don’t even have a kid in high school.  I am aggravated when the athletic boosters step over the line and make offensive statements in the giant spirit signs that line our main street on game day.  And I am indignant when the football players get advantages that other athletes and other disciplines do not enjoy.  That happens, almost every week.  

And yet.

There is something really marvelous about a high school football game in Texas.  Last night I went to a good one.  The air was crisp and just a little cool.  The wind chilled our noses.  The band played loud and proud even though they’ve already shifted most of their activities to concert work.  The stands were packed, the yells were loud, the air horn startled us every time.  A good slice of our town was there.  People who haven’t been to a single game all season came to this one.  At least one person who has never been to an American football game of any kind was there.  

Five teenage boys took leave of their senses to spend three hours in the chilled wind with no shirts and their bodies painted in the school colors, so that they could run up and down the sidelines with giant flags when we scored.  Girls in tiny skirts with glittery cheeks (and sweatpants, and turtlenecks, because they were smarter than those five boys in the paint) stacked themselves into impressive pyramids from which they tossed and caught the smallest of their number in stunts that I can only imagine their mothers find hard to watch.  It was so much fun.  And our team won, which made it even better.  They played well, they acted right, and they’re moving on in the playoffs.  It was a scene repeated all over Texas and the rest of the United States last night.  

I haven’t ever been able to find just the right words to explain why I enjoy a high school football game.  Then my kids led me to the right words.  

Tonight we were all sitting here in front of the computer, and I was doing random searches of whatever popped into their heads.  We searched speed stacking.  Ipswich lace (really it was Partner that threw that one out; he recently read this book—good idea, not a great ending).  Pseudonymous Bosch.  Treasure Island.  And hula.  Which led us to some You Tube videos of people doing hula.  The kids were really into the guys who do hula.  Which led us to a conversation about why people hula, and different styles.  Which led to a search of haka.  Which, beautifully enough, led us to this NPR story about the Trojans of Trinity High School, in Euless, Texas, of which, I’ll quote a smidge:

“The rituals are precisely defined:  There must be music and dancing, chanting and marching.  Sticks are twirled and thrown spinning into the night sky.  The tribe’s future — its strong, beautiful young men and women — paint their faces, don costumes and perform amazing feats of physical prowess for the pleasure and admiration of their people.”

And that refers to high school football, not the haka that the Trinity players perform before each game.  

Oh, and the Euless Trinity Trojans beat the Plano Wildcats 42-35 to advance to their next round of the playoffs as well.  We’re not in the same class, but maybe we’ll see them in Dallas in December.