Today was the last day of first grade. Hard to believe how much he's grown since August. I also can't believe how much he needs a haircut. Big changes this year - two new front teeth and two loose ones at the moment, longer hair, taller. He now reads incredibly fluently, can do basic square roots (don't ask, it certainly didn't come from me) and is an excellent swimmer. Along the way, he has tried skiing, completed two seasons of soccer and did some gymnastics. Phew! It was so long as fast all at the same time.

To mark the occasion, they had an ice cream party. When I arrived he was finished a bowl of vanilla with marshmallows and gummy bears. We he announced his stomach hurt, no one was surprised.

This summer, we'll have two babysitters trading off. One who worked for us last summer is back (yay!) and one who had been working for us after school during the year is staying on for longer (yay!). He's doing swim team again and he's going to be doing some martial arts in the evenings twice a week. Later on, he's got some camps sprinkled throughout and a visit to California in August. I am hoping we can get to Austin for a weekend again this summer, too.

Strep

Someone in my house is a carrier for strep. My leading suspect is someone under the age of eight, a male, weighs 50 pounds and likes to play the guitar no matter how out of tune it may be.

I don't recall ever having strep as a kid. This was disappointing, too. All my friends had it and I just had plain old sore throats. What fun is that? A real sore throat has a name and comes with antibiotics and not Luden's cough drops. But since I've had kids, I've had strep three times. The first time I was pregnant with Meg. Andy didn't get it, but I did. It was a rough few days being 6 months pregnant and achy and miserable. Last spring I got it and now this week.

I need to ask my doctor about if I need to get my tonsils taken out or something because this really sucks to be down for the count with high fever, chills and sore throat for two solid days.

Wanderer

My very restless sleeper is back! We have made a little progress on the going to bed thing and then there are night's like these. They all look like crime scene photos.

Trophy season

It's the end of the school year and lots of things are wrapping up, meaning lots of end of the season events and lots of celebrating.

Andy is getting his Tiger Badge, which I don't quite understand, but I think this means he can move up to being a Wolf scout next year.

He's pretty excited. I wish I could I have talked him into wearing pants that matched even slightly.

This was the Three Piggy Opera, the first grand spring musical. Beyond adorable. He's on the front right in a white shirt. I was able to negotiate better clothes for this one. The teachers told the kids specifically to have their parents pick out the outfits.  

Andy got up the nerve to invite his babysitter, Avery, to come with us. He's got a bit of a crush. Margaret had pajama day that day (and every day she's not wearing a gown practically).

End of season wrap up for soccer. I used to think participation trophies were lame until I had kids and realized just how important they are to the kids.

Here's the whole team. We actually have one more game.

Dance

I have been on the fence about dance class as they seem to take themselves a little too seriously. One thing is for sure though, this is going to be one damn cute recital.

Glad pask

Don't these kids clean up nice?

The little camper that shouldn't have been

I can hear the a collective groan from the counselors at camp when they saw my registration for my second summer. I was a terrible camper my first year. Camp was somehow not what I expected. I thought I was going to ride horses every day. I thought it would be different. I thought I wouldn't be scared to be gone for 19 days. But I was terrified. I spent the first 10 days crying to go home, I believe. My parents were called. Daily. Schedule adjustments were made. And somehow, by the middle of my second week, I began to really like camp. I gave up worrying and started having fun and learning. By the time my parents arrived, I stunned everyone by talking about next year.

The next summer, I was thrilled to be back. And then the loneliness of the first night set in and I cried. Then by the next night, I had switched to a new cabin and was having fun again. There were so many things to love about camp. It was outdoors, which I enjoyed. We got to ride horses and learn about animals, practice shooting guns and do obstacles courses. We played silly card games and cooked by the campfire.

Most of all, I had a chance to be someone I wasn't at home. I was cool. The skills I had at camp were valued in a way that weren't at middle school. Plus, I didn't have the baggage of kids who had known me since I was born. I had a chance to start new and I liked that.I went as a camper for the next six years, eventually becoming a counselor in training and then a counselor. I loved it. I learned a lot of leadership skills out there and that boosted my confidence immensely.

Last weekend, we organized a bit of a camp reunion down at the Y.O. Ranch. It was a multigenerational thing as the 35 or so of us overlapped at the same place but didn't necessarily all go to camp at the same time. We even had a fair number of counselors show - including two from Connecticut and one from Georgia. It was amazing to me to realize that so many of us had the same reaction to camp, especially this camp, that 20 years later we would travel hundreds and, for a few, thousands of miles to see it again. To see the place that meant so much to us and contributed so much to our formidable years, was really something.

It was also sad to see the camp has deteriorated over the years and has changed its focus. It's become more of a hunting camp than an outdoor adventure camp. Plus, insurance regulations have changed and a lot of what we did back then wouldn't fly today (which, frankly, I'm fine with.) As such, I'm not sure it would be a good place for my kids. That's both sad and liberating. They should get to find their own place and not necessarily go to where I went and have to live with my memories.

I have talked to my friends about sending our kids to summer camp though. Things seem different though. When? Where? How long? And how much? I look at Andy now at age 7 and wonder when he'll be ready. Not this year, certainly, but 9? 12? Same sex? Coed? I so much enjoyed the whole experience that I'd love my kids to get to experience something like it.


Here I am at age 10 learning to lasso. I think I look pretty good, actually.



My third year. I think I had a fe-mullet. It wasn't pretty. These are the austere cabins. They look exactly the same today.



Here I am on the climbing and rappel tower circa 1987.



Here I am on the ropes course in 2012. I look just as good, right? I was sure a lot more scared, that's for certain.

The case of the lucky penny

So Meg swallowed a penny last week. It was the middle of our vacation and I was getting the kids into bed when I noticed her trying to put her fingers down her throat so she could throw up the penny she had just swallowed. I immediately sat her up and started patting her back, she vomited a little and I sent Andy down to get help (one of the beauties of 11 people staying in the same house).

We all figured it would be fine, but Mary pointed out that some coins have lead in them so I called poison control just to be safe. Conveniently, I had it saved in my iPhone since the last time Meg made me call poison control. They said so long as she seemed to be feeling fine and was breathing normally (she was), that she should be fine but to check her stools for the next week to make sure it passed.

And now here we are, 6 days later, and I have yet to recover her "lucky" penny. This leads me to believe several things:
1) She pooped in this time and didn't tell me (most likely)
2) Her stomach acid ate the penny (possible, or possibly that it was eaten beyond recognition during my, uh, searches for it).
3) Gremlins ate it (Andy's thought)
4) It's still in there.

We see a new pediatrician on Friday. I'm going to ask her then if we need to do anything else. In the meantime, if it happens to come out naturally and I happen to see it, I'll post a picture. Just what you always wanted!

Skiing

We successfully skied this week although some were more successful than others. I believe I may be sore sore weeks.

Vacation

It is spring break and all of Texas is with us in New Mexico. There are almost exclusively Texas plates here, minus a few local plates and a stray Mexican one. We even ran into two couples from Southlake here who have kids Andy's age. It's like in college spring break a little realizing everyone is there for the same reason.

I haven't skied in at least a decade. And I had forgotten how seriously awesome it is. The snow here is melting as you would expect with 60 degree days. But I am an intermediate skier and have very low expectations.

Andy had a lesson and liked it. I was amazed he was on the chair lift by himself. My sister and I skied Monday and had probably the best snow of the week and even then it was patchy in places. Still, so cool!

We also found time for ski tubing which was fun. A little scary in that I got the impression the carnies that ran it had few safety considerations. It was a blast though.

This has been an interesting trip for us in that it is my family of six, both my sisters, my two neices and my mom all staying in my cousins' house. It has been plenty big but a lot of togetherness. Mostly in a good way.

The big surprise is we revived a game called 31 that my grandfather taught us to play probably 30 years ago that we actually played in Ruidoso. We have been gambling small sums of of $3 in each pot. It seems like a little until we played three games a night over four nights.

Not my genes

Meg had picture day yesterday. I was looking through her closet for something cute yet modest. Here is how she dressed herself. Clearly this is the Bennett genes at work. I would have chosen my soccer jersey, shorts and my tap shoes at this age.

Soccer

Meggie had her first soccer "game" this weekend. It's basically a practice in jerseys followed by a scrimmage against another team. It was hilarious as the kids cried when the other team scored and were all very polite about sharing and not wanting to steal the ball from the other kids.

She actually did really well and seemed to generally get it. I was impressed. Sure there was a little crying but overall she was digging it.

Reading club

Andy is in reading club at the request of his teacher. Apparently there are two kinds of reading club here. One is an enrichment, "You're doing great, let's do more reading! Crime and Punishment anyone?" kind of club. The second is more, "Your reading could be better. Let's meet after school once a week."

I was surprised to get the call from his teacher as I didn't realize it was a problem -- it's not like there are grades that matter in first grade per se. But after talking with her, she explained that he just didn't really like reading so he wasn't progressing so she wanted to get him over the hump, so to speak. And it's true, he just didn't like to read so it was always pulling teeth to get him engaged.

After talking to lots of other parents with his age, I realized that it's a really common thing and that there seem to be kids on all levels of the spectrum. I also realized that him and me fighting over getting him to read wasn't great so I hired a tutor to work with him once a week.

I must say, that's been the biggest difference. Reading club has been off and off due to the health of his teacher, but meeting with the tutor, he's managed to go from hating to read to wanting to read quietly in his room at night. It's been the most amazing shift to go from hating it to loving it. It also helps that we found some books he likes. Someone recommended The Spiderwick Chronicles which are great. We've also been reading some of the Magic Tree House series (there are only about 163 of those so we've got a lot to read). It has just been totally cool to see the transformation from non-reader to loving to read.

Here are a couple of the Egan family holiday pictures. I thought I was getting the whole CD from mom, but I managed to only get two pictures. At least they're good ones.

Birthday girl

For Meg's 4th birthday, she requested a fancy dinner at...Subway. It was adorable. The boys working there were surprised to see a family walking in laden with presents but when I explained it, they were really sweet to her. I will enjoy this. Soon enough, she will be like her big sister who quickly figured out that lobster, shrimp and sushi taste good.

Her big present from us was a new bike. She's already making strides on it and has the bruises and scrapes on her hands to prove it. She desperately wants to keep up with big brother and it's not there yet.

She was lucky enough to also get a Barbie from Fafa, a cool hopscotch game from Jennifer, a stuffed Minnie Mouse and DVD from Mark, leotards from Grandmother, $5 from Tia (all the cash in the world when you're 4) and pom-poms from Bitsie. It was a great birthday.

We had her party at the gymnastics center yesterday. I think it went pretty well and was inexpensive all things considered.

Photo shoot

 As part of the Bennett Family Christmas Extravaganza 2011, we hired a photographer to come take photos of everyone. Sadly the day picked was just dark and gray and the pictures of our family subset were terrible. We called the guy to come back and he knocked it out of the park this time. Check these out! We missed the window for Christmas cards so we're doing Valentine's Day cards instead. Personally, I love getting cards at other times of year so I'm glad to return the favor (and finally get out our cards.)