First day of school

Today is the first day of second grade and the beginning of Meg's last year at preschool. We clearly took a lot of pictures this morning.

I thought this was so funny. He often looks very skeptical.

Now he's happy again!

Egg drop soup

Andy's school had a really neat project last week. They were to take a raw egg and somehow make a 7 inch by 7 inch by 7 inch container to house it safely. The container would then be dropped off a ladder by a teacher to see if the egg survived. Bjorn and he worked on it and had several different cool designs. The one they finally settled on was a square box filled with fruit loops. They practiced by dropped it out the game room window into the driveway (downside, now he knows the game room windows can be opened).

I am happy to report that his egg survived. It was all pretty adorable. You could tell the girl containers because most of them were heavily decorated with colors and other appliques. Some designs were quite clever. The most common container was Tupperware followed by a box. Many kids violated the size rule, but hey, it's kindergarten and not a science project so no eliminations. Many of those didn't do any better.

Bjorn wanted to know how many survived and you really couldn't tell except some kids were crying (I presume their eggs broke) and on some, you could really hear the smack when they hit the ground so you just knew it didn't survive.

We did it!

So a few weeks (months?) ago, our town was considering rezoning our neighborhood from the elementary where Andy goes now to another about twice as far away. Both are excellent schools, but it would be a bummer for Andy to have to switch. Worse though, he would likely only be one of a few to actually make the move. The other kindergartner in our neighborhood would likely apply for an "in district" transfer and stay because he had an older brother in second grade. I could have done that for Andy, but in a few years, Meg would be coming along and then I'd have them in separate schools. I hated that it would split up the block with kids in different schools. My schedule also allows me to ride my bike or walk to pick him up and I wouldn't be able to do that any longer.

Anyhoo, good news, we fought and we won! Check it out. I even managed to get myself quoted in the newspaper.

Gifted

Andy's school sent something home a few months ago saying that they'd already picked who they thought from his class was academically gifted, but that if I wanted, I could have him tested. I usually opt for things like that mostly because I'm curious to see the results.

Last week, the results arrived. They were interesting to see.

Ability
CogAT- 93 percent (gifted is 95 percent and higher) (note to self - figure out what CogAT stands for)

Acheivement
Reading - 65 percent (yeah, that one's way below 94 percent)
Math - 96 percent

Then we move on to the Qualitative where he had "0 areas" in the Standard Score teacher survey (he would need two areas out of five to be in the gifted range).

We did get a nice note that he's "not recommended for placement at this time.

I'm glad I had him tested though. It's interesting to see that he does have an aptitude for math, which naturally made Bjorn thrilled and me glad that he's got Bjorn's genes on this one. His reading isn't great, but then again, he's just started reading so it makes sense. I have known kids who were reading chapter books at age three so he's definitely not there.

Still, I really dislike that schools label kids with advanced aptitudes as being "gifted." Something about it doesn't sit right with me, as if the others aren't gifted, too. Course, it could be partly because my kid is just above average.

Civics lesson

So I've gone and gotten involved in something political. Funny that Bjorn who loves politics doesn't get into this while I who mostly hate it am all in the throws of it. What's happening is Southlake is doing some school rezoning right now. They have built a new elementary school on the other side of town and they're moving the elementary school kids out of a joint elementary/intermediate school into the new elementary school and making the other just an intermediate school. That makes perfect sense, but while they're at it, they're also looking to "rebalance" the enrollment at some of the others and apparently my block is low-hanging fruit so they're looking to move our 27 kids who are currently within walking distance to one school to another, bigger school down the road. Both are excellent schools, but it would stink to have just started here and have to move. A bunch of neighbors have met and we've started a petition. Take a look and see what you think. Don't sign it unless you live in Southlake (I know you were dying to, right?) Also, yes, I know there is a typo in it. It kills me that it's there and I can't fix it. Something about how it's unfair to change a petition after folks have started signing it, but still.

Next up is attending school PTO and school board meetings. It's going to be interesting, that's for sure. Let me know if you have good advice for this stuff. I've contacted the local newspapers and we're starting a letting writing campaign, but I am sure there are lots of good ideas out there.

Rant du jour

I think I accidentally have a cause. When Andy started school and all the mounds of paperwork came home about the PTO etc., I filled something out to be on the Student Health Advisory Committee. I did have to explain what public health experience I have. Sure, I work for a medical trade association, in communications, but I'm hardly a nurse or anything. Despite that, I got on this committee. I presumed it was all about vaccinations and school lunches, that kind of stuff. I had no idea that what this really is is a front group to try to get sex education taught in Texas public schools, one school district at a time.

Fun facts that I've learned the last few weeks -- Texas leads the nation in abstinence only sexual education because the state mandates that only abstinence be taught at the local schools unless the individual district explicitly decides to do otherwise. In 2005, it also had the highest teen pregnancy rate (apparently Texas, New Mexico and Mississippi take turns with that honor).

Now believe me, I'm not all about seriously graphic sex education or anything, but I do believe that teaching kids the basics of developing bodies, pregnancy prevention and STD and HIV avoidance is one of the big things a school should do in addition to reading, writing and basic math/checkbook maintenance. I'm serious. World history is important, but it's hardly the life skill that say, not getting pregnant is. Sure, this is a touchy subject and sure, parents, should absolutely be the final teachers in this, but to let kids teach themselves through Gossip Girl and Facebook is really criminal. And this is avoiding the really controversial stuff (!) like teaching kids that homosexuality is okay or that abortion exists. My parents were pretty conservative when it came to a lot of things, but I'm really proud that they knew you have to teach kids these things. And I can say from experience that my mother's talks and books teaching us all about these things did not make me more apt to out and sleep around or do drugs.

There is a group here that is fascinating and doing some work that actually may inspire me to get more involved -- The Texas Freedom Network. Check it out.

The worst school photographs ever

The kids got the school pictures back. And they are both terrible. Poor Andy was in the throws of Fifth's Disease, also called Slapped Cheek Disease, so his cheeks look like he's got bad acne.

Meg's, well, wow those are just bad. Her hair looks greasy and messy (messier than usual even) and the black background doesn't do her any favors. It's too bad, too, since I purposely put her in a green dress thinking it could be Christmasey enough.

Sure, I went ahead and bought some. Even bad pictures are a chronicle of their youth that I want to preserve, possibly in the form of Christmas ornaments. I doubt either kid is going to thank me in 10 years for saving these though!

Fifth's Disease

So Andy has Fifths Disease. It sounds a lot more awful than it is, it's basically just a viral infection that causes his cheeks to get all red with a little spread on his arms and legs. What is notable about it, it's also called "Slapped Cheek" disease. I find that somewhat hilarious as it apparently hearkens back to a time when people would slap the cheeks of five year olds. The other notable thing is that Fifths Disease is harmful to unborn babies, but only when it's contagious which was before he broke out. So all last week he was contagious, which makes me feel terrible since there are several pregnant teachers in the kindergarten wing. Hopefully they've had it before and have immunity (most likely as all these random illnesses are a work hazard, but still). There is no treatment for it, it doesn't hurt and it doesn't itch -- it's just red and icky. It gets better when cool (like in the pool) and worse when hot (like when he's running around outside). Bizarre.

Naturally, the peak of his face AIDS, as Mark would call it, happened yesterday which was picture day. He will be thrilled to see those popping up on Facebook the rest of his life wondering why he had bad acne at five.

Oh, and the other picture? Today is silly mismatched dress day so he's wearing a striped shirt, too small, plaid shorts and green socks. Adorable!

Transitional kindergarten

So there's a big deal down in Texas about holding your kids back a year before starting them in school. There are a couple of reasons for it. Say the school cut-off is August 31 and your child is born August 20, you might decide to hold him back a year so that they're among the older kids and not the youngest. The reasons being that your kid is more mature and ready when they start kindergarten and therefore more ready to learn, be away from home, etc. That also means that they are a year older and possibly more advanced than those younger kids. This would give the kid a leg up when it comes to academics (i.e. more mature kids in theory are more likely to do better in school).

It also means, wait for it, that they are bigger physically. In a place like Texas where sports is perhaps a slightly bigger deal than elsewhere (let's be real, it is a big deal everywhere else, just perhaps a bigger deal here), your kid will get physically bigger sooner, simply because he's 13 and hitting puberty when his classmates who are 12 aren't there yet.

This leads to some other questions though. So if everyone does it, does the advantage go away? I get August birthdays, but what about April birthdays? Or even September birthdays? So now instead of starting kindergarten at 5, they would be starting at 7. Now that's an even weirder disparity of having kids in the same class that are almost two years apart. That doesn't seem right for either set of kids -- the older ones who want to date at age 15 when they're in eighth grade or the younger ones who at 13 in eighth grade, are still playing with their Lego's and video games.

Everyone wants the best of their kids, but it seems that if there is an age for when kids can enter kindergarten, there should also generally be a cut off, too, to prevent 9 year olds from being in the first grade. Of course, some kids genuinely struggle in school and may need an extra year of kindergarten to overcome dyslexia or an autism spectrum, but where do you draw the line?

Both my kids have January birthdays so I never really thought about having to make a choice. They would both be 5 2/3rds when they started kindergarten, hopefully making them neither the oldest or the youngest in the bunch. It will be interesting if I find out their really among the youngest. I don't think it will change my decision to put them in school at that age, but it would be good to know.

What happened to the good old days when folks were thrilled when their kids were old enough to go off to school?

Classic

Andy's feet have smelled awful lately, partly due to the fact that he left them in brief rainstorm last week and that he generally refuses to wear socks. Thus the combination of rain/mildew and sweat have been pretty ugly. Based on some kind feedback from friends on Facebook, I treated them with Febreeze and have been making an effort to leave them in the garage over night to air out. This leads us to today.

It's Thursday, everyone is cranky and we're pulling into the school at 7:54, just in time before the 7:55 bell rings when Andy announces, "Hey! I don't have any shoes on." D'oh!

My quick thinking made me decide to make him wear Meg's crocs (too small, but functional) into school so he wouldn't be late while I ran home to get him shoes, which I then had to leave for him in the office. I am sure this is the first of many times I will be returning to the office with something left at home -- homework, lunch.

Hugs not slugs

The first day of school was yesterday. I was definitely more nervous than Andy, I think. This marks the first time that he HAS to be at school by a certain time, not the laissez faire complicated math formula we've done it in the past which is the kids get dropped off relative to when we have to be at the office relative to when we woke up in correlation to how many times the kids woke up in the night inverse to when what time I went to bed. Plus, drop off is a solid 45 minutes to an hour earlier than we normally dropped off.

But we made it. I dropped him off and he was happy about it. No tears from either of us. I was nervous about looking the part. I did shower in the morning, but in between discussions of whether Andy had to wear socks and whether Meg really intended to stand outside my shower and cry the whole time I was in there (seriously), I ran out of time to put on makeup and blow dry my hair. I could just hear my mother in the back of my head saying something about not drying my hair. My answer was to put it up in a ponytail. It was fine.

Meanwhile, I shouldn't have even worried about it. I took this picture of Andy sitting at his table (his teacher is in the foreground). Check out the woman wearing a hat and a racer back sports bra. Seriously? Who wears that indoors? Of course, people who can rock the outfit wear it, but I didn't feel self conscious once I realized I was at least wearing a top. Overall, Andy did fine. It's hard to believe he's actually in school!

Meanwhile, speaking of tops, Meg is rocking a new look these days. This kid refuses to wear her clothes a lot of the time. We're having struggles where I turn around and she's removed her diaper and is wandering around al fresco. See the look she's rocking here? Crocs (thanks Frances!), a pajama shirt on her head, and Fancy Nancy underpants over her shorts. I really need to frame this one for later.

I suppose it's official

Andy got a letter today from his kindergarten teacher. I guess it's official, my boy is going to school next Monday.

Meanwhile, Andy and I got into a bit of an argument about whether he's going to first grade or kindergarten. Well, argument is too strong. He insists he's going to first grade, "First grade is kindergarten, Mommy." I insist he's wrong, but realize there is very little I can do to make him realize he's wrong so for perhaps the first time in my life, you know, ever, I'm holding my tongue.

Kindergarten

Andy starts school next week. REAL school. I am psyched, and not just because I won't have to pay $200 a week in daycare. I am psyched for him to be going to a real school and starting to read and all the fun stuff that comes from elementary school. The whole thing seems a little surreal. I went by to register him and I swear it even smelled like an elementary school. Good thing I have good memories of elementary school. Middle school, well, not so much, but I really did love elementary school. When I wasn't crying and wailing about being forced to go, that is.

The downside of this will be now school is mandatory. Before, we could just blow off a week for vacation or skip a day because I was off and wanted to play. Now it will be harder, plus I'll need to set the example that school isn't optional, it's really important. It's also going to be different because unlike daycare where you can quit if you don't like it, public school isn't really like that. Plus, he'll have to be at school at an exact time every day. Punctuality isn't especially my strong suit.

Any tips on helping make the transition easier for all of us?