End-of-the-School-Year Craziness

Ah, the end of the school year. This is where things get really crazy. Turning in books, verifying grades, trying to scramble for that last “B,” banquets, parties, permission slips, yearbooks, school dances, teacher gifts, dress-shoes for promotions … the list goes on and on. Moms everywhere know what I’m talking about.

Rene is in a showdown with a crazy retiring-in-two-minutes teacher who has left the entire class bewildered with “missing assignments” notes when she left for some kind of surgery and has never returned. The substitutes have been bewildered also. The kids have all been glumly picking up slips for summer school. But there might be a knight in shining armor who swooped in to finish the last two weeks as the “permanent substitute” (there’s a fun phrase). And here’s the kicker – he had this same teacher years ago when he was at the school! So he feels very sympathetic toward the students and says he believes in “transparency” and “online grades” (thank you, sir!) and has vowed to get all their grades online so they can check to see what they’re really missing and if they’ve perhaps already turned it in. So, with 1 week left, we’re ending on a cliffhanger, here. I hope everything works out for Rene.

Nathan, meanwhile, is experiencing spring fever like I’ve never seen a child experience spring fever. My two older kids have always really liked school, and seem to stay motivated until the end. But this child. … hmmm … He just wants to head to the beach every single day. Since about May 1. Poor dude. But he’s almost done, too. We remind him of the countdown every day.

Summer, oh summer – We can’t wait to see you next week!

P.S. I also think we must be the LAST district out for summer???

Budding Writer

Nathan left this note for me before I left for work one day:

There’s not much that a writer mom would rather see, than a note like this, attached to a packet of poems and shoved in her drawer so she’ll see it before she grabs her car keys. …

Of course, I read the packet throughout the day. I smiled. I enjoyed. I reread. It’s still in my purse. The writing was so good — so filled with that opening-flower-like bloom of a kid who realizes the power of words.

It’s so thrilling to see my kids discover the joy of expressing loves, feelings, thoughts and emotion through words.

I hope he hangs on to this discovery.

(I know I’ll hang on to his writing packet.)

A Whale-Watching Adventure

We had so much fun this weekend going whale-watching!

I received tickets from Dana Wharf Sportfishing and Whale Watching Co., who hoped we’d have a good time and would do a write-up for my other blog — Things To Do In Orange County.

I’d never been whale-watching before, so I was excited to give it a try. And Superman had brought it up a few times as something he’d like to do. And both my teens were really excited about it. (Rene even had it on her “high school bucket list”!)

So we were off!

We went to pick up our tickets at will-call in Dana Point Harbor, then had about 45 minutes to kill, so we wandered around the harbor area and looked at the shops and boats. I always forget how pretty Dana Point Harbor is!

We chose a noon boarding time (options were 10 a.m., noon, or 2 p.m.), which was perfect because the morning gloom burned off right around 11:45, and it got sunny just as we were boarding. Continue reading

How Is This Possible?

This kind of stuff kind of freaks me out:

My daughter, all PRACTICING DRIVING and stuff. … Holy moly, when did that happen?

She looked like this just five minutes ago:

And now she looks like this:

This “getting old” stuff ain’t for sissies, that’s all I’ve got to say. …

 

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