The Home Stretch

Well, the 4th of July has come and gone, the temperatures are dependably in the upper 70s and lower 80s, and I'm still packing the kids off to school each morning.  It's frustrating: there are so many things I'd like to be doing with them, but I'm still bound by a schedule and a nightly homework load.

But we're getting closer.  Alex came home from school today with a large shopping bag.  "Mom!  Guess what! I know I won't have to do gym class any more, because today we got to bring home our gym clothes!  And I must be almost done with school because, look! Teacher gave me my Ordner!"

"Ordner" means binder: apparently the teacher has been helping the kids put together portfolios, and today Alex brought his home.

Alex with his fellow caterpillars

The teacher included some other really cute classroom photos, including ones from Alex's birthday, their visit with the firemen, their Sporttag.  And there were many, many drawings from the school year: lots of coloring pages, and many pages like this one, where Alex was supposed to duplicate drawings.

It was very sweet to see all of Alex's work, and he's very proud of himself.  He showed his book to Ella, who feigned enthusiasm nicely, and then he put it in a safe place with plans to keep adding to it for ever and ever.

Ella's teacher doesn't seem to be winding down, though: just the opposite.  They've finished learning their division and multiplication tables and are moving on to measuring and word problems and logic, and somehow, in the past week, Ella seems to have figured out cursive handwriting.

Anyway, I think I was more impatient than she was with her homework exercise this afternoon: as soon as she finished copying and solving her problems, I hustled the kids out the door and down the street to the pool.

The kids were actually more interested in playground than the pool today, though, particularly Alex, who scraped his knee on the pool edge and was kind of sore.  He spent his afternoon performing a public service: "Mom, I really hate it when I step on pinecones, and other people must, too, so I'm going to clean up the park today."  And Joey helped.

 Ella, however, had other plans.

She's a chip off the old block: I was right there next to her with my own book, and we were all so happy that I lost track of time and didn't think to pack up until 5:00. But the day was still so pretty that I hated to bring the kids inside, so we had oven pizzas and edamame for dinner (with nochElla "joining us for tea,") in between hopscotch games.

It may be a school night, but it's also summer.