I Blinked!

When Kayli was preparing for kindergarten last year, more than a few "experienced moms" told me that once a child starts kindergarten, it seems that in a "blink of an eye" the year is gone, then the next, and the next, and pretty soon they are off to middle school! So, my sweet pea headed off to kindergarten just overflowing with excitement, while I tearfully watched my baby start elementary school and tried not to "blink"!  The year was filled with learning and fun, and Kayli loved kindergarten and loved her teacher! I watched my "baby" grow as she went from reciting her alphabet to actually reading, from counting to 10 to counting to 100 by 5s and 10s! This year my little perfectionist went from not wanting to color because her drawings weren't "perfect" to proudly creating picture after picture of the most creative drawings, which I proudly display in my classroom and on the refrigerator at home! She made lots of friends and learned lots of coping skills while playing with kids possessing a "variety" of personalities (or should I say while playing with some kids who appeared to be possessed?!!! Ha, ok, kidding:)) So, eventually "I blinked", and here we are already at the end of the school year! Time marches on, and all we can do is attempt to capture snippets of this time through photographs and videos, and try, try, try, NOT to Blink!

And, here's a video clip from the "end-of-year-kindergarten-program" : so cute!

Kids!

So, I pick Kayli up from her day in kindergarten and she has a big hole in her tights, and I notice that the spot of skin exposed is an orangish color, and I assume she fell and skinned her knee, thus the hole in the tights. Logical assumption right? But, I become suspicious when I notice that the skin is still smooth and intact. I still can't stop myself from asking "Kayli, did you fall at recess?"  "No" she says. "Well, how did you tear your tights?" She looks down at the hole in her tights and says "I don't remember" and looks like she is trying to review the events of the day in her head. Then, I ask the next crazy question, which is "Why is your skin the color of orange?" "Ohhhh, well I colored it!" What? Why did you color it? "I was in the 'writing center." Oh, silly me, I see now, you just happened to have an orange marker in your hand and you looked down at this perfect circle of skin that just looked like it needed to be filled in. Now I see...and I'm supposed to nod as if this was a perfectly logical sequence of events, and really it IS, a perfectly natural sequence of events, if you are in kindergarten...too funny!

and, yes, it is May and we are still having intermittent weather that is cold enough for these tights!

Good Ol' Field Day!

Yep, it's as "old as time"; the good ol' Field Day, the grand finale of the school year. A time to head outdoors, and spend a day with hot, sweaty friends, participating in a variety of "olympic events" like the...
...drag-a-classmate-on-a-tarp-across-the-grass-event...

"Ok, gang, a little to the left"...

"Whoa, I'm feeling a little bit like a hotdog in a bun here"...

"Ahh, much better, I'll just relax a bit til' we get to the finish line"...

and, of course, there's always the tried and true tug-of-war event... Positions Everyone...

aaaand PULL...

and pull some more...

"ok, a little help here, please?"

now, let's re-group, boys against girls...

"C'mon Mrs. H, we need your heeelp"...

Woohoo! Oh, yeah,  Girls Rule!!!

Time for a group huddle, drinks, and a little pep talk for the next event...

and she's off and hopping...

almost there...

made it!

Next event? It's one of my favorites. It's called the "waiting-in-line-for-your-turn" event, and it always offers something new!

seriously, if you ever want a good laugh, just watch a bunch of kindergartners waiting in a line...

Kayli tells me that this little boy accidentally elbowed her in the nose and when he asked if he could check her nose, he "tricked her" and told her it was bleeding (such a typical "boy stunt") you can see the little girl, in the picture below, next to Kayli, is doublechecking for her, too funny...like I said..."line-standing-olympics!"

This "taxing event" was followed by a much milder competition of picking up some sidewalk chalk and tracing a friend...

there, of course, were many more events, but I only photographed a "sampling" since I was busy "manning" some of my own stations, giving teachers breaks, and taking kids to the potty, while Kayli and her class rotated through a whole bunch of other super olympic activities! It was a REALLY HOT LONG FULL DAY at 90-something degrees, and by the afternoon, lots of kids were begging to repeat the water events! Thank-goodness for the "water events" to cool everyone off! At the end of the day, I brought home a soaking wet, overstimulated, but very tired little girl, who couldn't even make it through our after school grocery store stint without falling sound asleep in the shopping cart! Then, as the evening wore on, and Kayli had more than a few irrational-tear-filled-meltdowns, the "light bulb" finally went on in my head and I realized that I should have put this lethargic lunatic in her bed for the night the minute we walked through our door! I'll remember that next year, or will I?!!! 

"The Best Mommy in the Whole Wide World!"

This is what Kayli always tells me, and I love it!  But then she always adds..."no matter what anyone says!" Ha!
So, Happy Mommy's Day to me from my ad-libbing, adoring sweet pea! Kayli couldn't wait for the "big day" to arrive, as she had heard from someone that it was customary to serve your mother breakfast in bed, and that's what she intended to do! I told her that I thought it was a fabulous idea just as long as she didn't try to carry milk or coffee up the stairs. No problem mom...

Honey Wheat Chex, cinnamon roll, juice bags, and, um...cheese stick? Oh, right, that would be for Kayli...

Oh, you noticed a tiny foreign red object in the corner of the tray? Yep, that would be one of my fabulous "Kayli made" Mother's Day gifts. It's a...aww, a sweet little heart shaped candy dish, of course!

Ya gotta love it! Kayli told me that she didn't get the whole thing painted before the teacher took it, but that's ok because she thinks the white part just makes it look more "interesting!" "It just adds more detail, Mom!" Oh, and Kayli was so proud of her new experimental way of signing the word "Love" using a heart for the letter "O"...

there was a giant card with this inside...

and a little card with this happy picture of the two of us...

then, she humored me and agreed to take a "field trip" to the arboretum. I told her we needed some good ideas for planting flowers in our back yard. This was a big sacrifice from a little girl that is seriously suspect of ANYTHING that flies and knows that's just what we'll encounter while we stroll through a garden! She agreed to the outing, as long as she could ride in the wagon. Oh, and it's a good thing she decided to bring along her newly acquired sun umbrella, because her mom wasn't even thinking about the blazing sun and the fact that we both should have had sunscreen!

The place was beautiful...crowded (hello? it IS Mother's Day), but beautiful...

Beautiful, yes, but sooo hot in the middle of the day..whew, what was I thinking...blazing hot sun, pulling Miss Pink Parasol around in a wagon, seriously, this field trip needs to happen on another day when we can get there in the early morning, and on a non-holiday day, Hmm... Ok, Kayli, one more picture and we're out of here...let's go get ice cream! Thanks, Mom...I was hoping you'd say that...

 Happy Mother's Day!