First Day
And she’s off! M. started kindergarten today at the school we plan for her to attend for the next nine years.1 She was up early and excited to get her uniform on and get out the door. We walked her to her class, put her things in her cubby, and helped her find her seat. She sat and started coloring…
Double Standard
We took the girls to their first baseball game last night, an Indianapolis Indians contest. We sat in the outfield grass with friends. The girls seemed more interested in throwing peanuts to the mice that were apparently running through the flower beds near us. Awesome. We stuck it out to the seventh inning, which I thought was pretty good. M. complained…
Six
M. turned six Sunday. That feels like a milestone birthday; a clear delineation between little kid and big kid. Did I say that last year, too? Even though she’s been through kindergarten, she still felt young, something that was reinforced by knowing she would be attending kindergarten again this year. As if last year wasn’t really kindergarten, just practice for…
Double Trouble
We’ve been dealing with some, umm, discipline issues with the two big sisters recently. Mostly the usual stuff that comes with being home in the summer, standard age-specific issues, etc. But they’ve also learned how to really push each other’s buttons, which can make things worse. One recent day we had a series of issues which, long story short, resulted…
Saving The Day
OK, it wasn’t quite the Miracle on Ice, Part II, but Landon Donovan’s game-winning goal Wednesday was pretty freaking cool. We, unfortunately, had a previously scheduled engagement with the new cheetah exhibit at the Indianapolis Zoo. So, other than watching the brilliant opening ceremonies, when the US crowd nearly drowned out the PA system signing the national anthem, I was…
Not Sure What To Think
Last Friday M. attended a birthday party1 at one of the many local bounce places.2 After bouncing for awhile, then eating pizza, cake, and ice cream, the host mom handed out tokens for the arcade area to all the kids. While I was helping M. earn some tickets so she could get another cheap, plastic toy to take home, I…
Las Chicas
Time for a girl update. A big event has not gotten its proper blog treatment: M.’s “graduation” from kindergarten. I use the quotation marks because A) kindergarten graduations are kind of silly to begin with and B) she’s not really done with kindergarten. Let’s get the event out of the way first. Her class put on a fine performance for…
Banned
The school year is almost over, but it’s never too late for the teachers to ban items from the classroom. M.’s class has been overrun by the scourge of our times: Silly Bandz. For the non-parents, or parents of younger kids, Silly Bandz are basically colored rubber bands that have been molded to the shape of kid friendly objects: pets,…
Baby Steps
I’m pleased to report that M. has improved her soccer game over the past few weeks. She’s still no Mia Hamm, but at least she’s doing some positive things during games. Tuesday night she even had an important milestone. Last weekend she mastered the concept of getting back on defense. Unlike her earlier attempts, she was racing back towards her…
M’s First Soccer Game
M.’s first soccer game was Saturday. As with her first practice, it went about as well as we could have hoped. She wasn’t the fastest player on the team, nor the best, but that fit our expectations. After trailing the action for awhile, she finally got in the mix and even managed to gain possession a few times. It was…