let's talk about kindergarten

Since I am now five, people always ask me about kindergarten. ohhhh you must be about to start kindergarten. No, I am not. Since I attend Montessori, I have the privilege of being in a mixed-age primary classroom for three years so I have the opportunity to know my guides, my peers, and to master my work. Next school year, I will move into a leadership role and I am most excited about serving snacks to the little ones.  

Here is a photo of me bidding goodbye to my guide on the last day of school. I was so ready for a break from her - and school in general. 

This week, my school is moving from its crowded home of 23 years to a new 12-acre campus . . . with a top-notch outdoor education program. (Have I mentioned that before?) When I return to school, a mere two months from now, this is what my life will look like. And I have finally been invited to be a lunch child!

tornado weather

On Thursday when we went to bed the evening was still pleasant, if not miserably hot. And then came this to interrupt my mom's game of Words with Friends. Good thing she happened to be playing a game.

I was carted downstairs because the last place you want to be is upstairs during a tornado. I briefly woke up to ask what was going on. By then, the storm was fierce and loud and the winds were 80mph. All I knew was maybe a tornado. After an hour+ of being half awake but mostly asleep, the winds suddenly stopped but it was so eerie that it was impossible to know if the storm really had passed or if something worse was brewing. 

The next morning was beautiful and sunny. I was heartbroken to see that my grove of massive oak trees was mostly destroyed. The saddest part was seeing the tree with the crushed bird nest in it. In recent days, I have realized just how much shade those trees provided in the afternoon and they will really be missed this summer. 

We also lost part of our roof. Again. I had the honor of collecting the roof tiles that scattered across our yard. 

Our neighborhood suffered a lot of damage. A shed was blown into the middle of the road. (What?) Many yards lost fences. So many beautiful trees are torn apart.

My assessment: tornadoes are way too scary but interesting.
(And ours wasn't even a real tornado. Close enough though.)

five

On Tuesday, I celebrated my last day of being four with my first ever trip to Homeslice. (Clarification: Homeslice is closed on Tuesdays but thankfully their More Homeslice is open to peddle the best slices in the world.) I have long been addicted to Homeslice but have never had the privilege of going there. All I can say is wow. And it exceeded all expectations. 

Some fun plans were tentatively made for my birthday but everything fell by the wayside and I built Lego for 12 hours or so. (Best birthday ever.) I took a break only to go to Verdes for dinner and to play a bit of football on their back lawn which really isn't much of a lawn right now. It has become tradition to celebrate my birthday at Verdes with a nutritionally unbalanced meal of too much queso, glass after glass of lemonade, and a sundae that is bigger and more elaborate each year.

On our way out, I met a sweet older couple who immediately adored me as I began my story of how yesterday I was four but then I woke up and I was automatically five. I showed them my Lego monstertruck that I had brought along for the car ride to Verdes. I charmed them further (the woman raved about how much she loved loved loved my personality) and they regretted missing my birthday and not getting me a gift since it all just happened automatically. So my new friends gave me some money as long as I promised to go shopping for a birthday gift on behalf of them. I have no way to thank them.

birthday circle: a saga

Not only is this the last week of school but, tomorrow, it is finally my turn for a birthday circle. I am the last of the year. The birthday circles started out fairly lowkey and we would celebrate our friends with treats of fruit kebabs, juice popsicles, or popcorn but somewhere along the way, one-upmanship (amongst the children, not the parents) kicked in. I was going to bring the best treat ever: pink cakepops from Starbucks. This had been my plan for months. and months. and months. 

And then my best friend, the girl I am going to marry, ruined everything (by her mother's admission). They baked/brought giant, and I mean GIANT, cookies with chocolate chips and M&Ms. They were fantastic. We all loved them and we are still talking about it! Then the birthday circle rules were promptly and drastically rewritten. 

There went my cakepop plan. We then decided to order our cakepops from Whole Foods (made without refined sugar and, sadly, not pink) but they don't make them anymore. We visited three different Whole Foods stores and some other fancy bakeries trying to settle on a birthday treat. In the end, my mom made peanut butter cookies not rolled in sugar and with chocolate shavings instead of chips. They are precisely uniform in size with most of the chocolate intentionally hidden at the bottom of the cookie. 

And then there was the book. It is tradition to donate a book to my school in honor of your child's birthday. Combine the rigid guidelines about what reading materials are allowed in the Montessori classroom with my mom's fussiness about grammar, language, and punctuation and you will know that choosing the book was not an easy task. It took countless hours to select one about insects. It's not hardcover but I hope that will be fine. 

And then there were the photos. I have to show my friends photos from each of my years. This is what I chose.