Sunday, August 29, 2010
Promotion day
Today was “promotion” day in our church. Which means that all the kiddos moved up to a new Sunday School class.
Zane was promoted into the Youth department.
And I’m excited about that.
Our Youth Pastor is awesome. I consider him not just a Pastor but a friend. Oh… and he’s my running buddy too.
And there’s probably no one - apart from Carmi or myself - that I would trust any more with our son’s spiritual growth.
This is going to be a great time in Zane’s life.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
A little peace of mind
Zane got a cell phone today.
Which is probably a big deal for most teenagers.
But not so much for him.
He didn’t ask for it.
Mom and dad just desired a little peace of mind.
I could probably count on two hands the number of times he’s talked on the phone - any phone - in the year and a half that he’s been home.
So hopefully the cell phone bill is safe.
{extended}Friday, August 27, 2010
MIA
OK.
So we had a r-e-a-l-l-y bizarre message on our answering machine this morning.
A lady from Zane’s school called to say… and I quote…
“Mrs. Henderson… my name is [blank] from [blank] Middle School. I was calling in regards to Zane. We’re in the first 3 days of school and we don’t believe we have seen him here at the Middle School. Just checking to see if perhaps maybe he had gone to a different school this year? If you could give me a call back, that would be great.”
This was a serious what the heck moment.
In fact, I said it out loud.
Then I quickly returned the lady’s call and introduced myself.
“I can assure you”, I continued, “that Zane has been at school. And the correct school. I’ve personally dropped him off every morning and my mother-in-law has picked him up in the afternoon.”
“Mr. Henderson, let me check on something and I’ll call you right back.”
Which she did. And here’s the lowdown…
Zane has not been to his ESL class which, according to my discussion with the principal on Open House night, is an elective that he’s required to take.
Even though I had talked to Zane about ESL, he apparently didn’t remember and had been going to a Life Skills class in cooking and sewing.
Yep. Cooking and sewing.
Now there’s nothing wrong with cooking and sewing. English is just more of a priority right now, you know?
But seriously… what kind of nitwit calls a parent and says their child is missing from school when he’s just missing from a single class?
{extended}Karys is now a kindergartner
Carmi and I took Karys to school this morning for her first day of kindergarten.
She’s in a staggered start which means that only 4 in her class go each day for the first week.
They started on Wednesday with the rest of our schools and will stagger through next Tuesday.
Her first “official” day is next Wednesday.
But for today, she was all set to go.
She put on her backpack probably 45 minutes before we needed to leave the house. Every 5 minutes or so, she would walk up to me and say, “I’m ready.”
When we finally reached the school, one of her buddies from preschool had also just arrived.
So the 2 girls started a new chapter in their young lives walking hand-in-hand.
Monday, August 23, 2010
3 open houses
Today was “open house” at the kiddo’s schools.
Eliana and Karys will be in the same school for this one year so big sis will have to show little sis the ropes of elementary school.
Uhhh… not that little sis will be very appreciative when big sis tries to offer direction.
Five-year-olds know it all anyway, right?
I feel a pep talk coming on before the first day of school on Wednesday.
So we took Karys to her kindergarten room first and introduced Mrs. C to the class clown.
Karys found her cubbie and desk.
And we noticed pretty quickly that Karys and her “boyfriend” will not be sitting next to each other.
Probably a good thing.
Next, we took Eliana to her 3rd-grade classroom.
We were not familiar with her teacher.
But we did find out that her husband is a local police officer and works with a friend of ours who is also a police officer.
So there is a connection.
And she seems nice enough.
Zane was quite bored.
So to pass the time, he checked out the books in each class.
Actually, I think he just didn’t know what to do without a Nintendo DS in his hand.
Lastly, Zane was introduced to his new middle school.
We met his 4 teachers for math, science, social studies and language arts.
Zane did NOT like social studies last year. It was an understandably difficult subject for him.
But his new teacher said that he didn’t like social studies when he was in school either. So he teaches the way he wished the subject had been taught in school.
Sounds like he makes it fun for the students.
{extended}Saturday, August 21, 2010
A card from teacher
Karys received a very nice handwritten postcard from her Kindergarten teacher today.
Have I mentioned how excited and thankful we are that Karys has the same teacher Eliana had?
This note is just one example of why we think so much of her.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Spazz
Eliana is convinced that I doctored this photo of Maggie but I promise I didn’t.
Cats in a tree
I keep hearing rumors at church about cats in a tree at the edge of our parking lot.
I had to run by the church this afternoon for some business and remembered to check out the situation before leaving.
Sure ‘nuff.
Momma didn’t stick around long at all once she caught a whiff of us.
And then I saw these little cuties…
No, Carmi!
{extended}The awfullest thing ever
Karys went off for a few hours with one of her buddies this morning, Eliana spent some quality time with gran’mommy and I took Zane to pick up his Mac laptop for the upcoming school year.
Afterwards, he and I went to a local Chinese buffet that our family has come to love.
I wanted to skip the main meal and go straight to the dessert.
No. Seriously.
Because they have fried doughnuts to die for.
They’re warm. And they’re covered in sugar. And they practically melt in your mouth.
Isn’t your mouth watering just looking at the photograph below?
But Zane didn’t have any on his plate.
“Have you tried these?”, I asked.
“No.”
“Want to?”
“Uh-huh.”
I cut off a (very small) sliver and placed the it on his plate.
He quickly picked it up and popped it in his mouth.
As he chewed, his head tilted one way and then the other.
His face contorted into a look of disgust.
His tongue flailed around like he had a mouthful of chalk.
I thought he was on the verge of spitting it out.
“You don’t like it?”
“No!”, he exclaimed. “That’s the awfullest thing EVER!”
I’m so scheduling him for a mental health exam.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
A crazy idea
A long (long, long) time ago, I ran.
I never especially liked the act of running itself but I loved the way it made me look and feel.
When Carmi and I met, I was training for a biathlon and running 7-8 miles a day.
Then we married.
And… I became lazy.
13 years later, one of my brothers-in-law talked me into the Cooper River Bridge Run in Charleston, SC.
So I came out of retirement and ran the Charleston 10K which is a hair over 6 miles.
Loved it so much… actually we love Charleston so much… that I ran it for 2 more years.
Then… I became lazy.
And 9 years later I’ve had a crazy idea.
I want to run a marathon. In the first quarter of 2011.
26.2 miles. Crazy, right?
Tonight I (un)officially started training with a whopping 1-mile run.
Eliana wanted to run with me. And run she did.
Around the 1/4-mile mark, she asked, “Are we about done???”
But halfway through, she reached up and grabbed my hand.
Then it felt like I was running on a cloud.
Monday, August 16, 2010
My supervisor
Karys is keeping me company and supervising while I mow the yard.
That’s some pretty good motivation right there…
Friday, August 13, 2010
The party’s at our house
Eliana and Karys have the light ball going in their room and War’s “Why Can’t We Be Friends” blaring on the CD player.
Hopefully the neighbors won’t call the police…
... and the girls don’t run naked through the house.
Karys’ kindergarten assignment
Eliana and Karys both received their teacher assignments in the mail today for the 2010-2011 school year.
Carmi and I requested for Karys to have the same teacher that Eliana had in kindergarten. This particular teacher was absolutely wonderful and Eliana learned a lot in her first year of school.
So I was pretty stoked to look at the postcard and see that our request was granted.
What’s cool is that we traveled to China to bring Karys home, like, the week after Eliana started kindergarten. This teacher was a part of that whole process and now she gets Karys in her class.
{extended}Tuesday, August 10, 2010
A strong girl like me
I walked up to Eliana’s Vacation Bible School class tonight while they were outside enjoying some recreational activities.
When Eliana saw me, she bounded over and started fussing about a boy in her class who she did not know.
She pointed the guy out. He was kinda small. Definitely smaller than her.
She went on and on and on about how he did this and said that and she was about ready to “clean his clock”.
“Honey… don’t sit with the boys! Go and hang out with the girls!”
“But he keeps following me!”
Just between you and me, I’m sure it wasn’t anything THAT serious.
But she was obviously quite aggravated.
“Dad… he told me that he broke a girl’s bone!”, she said all wide-eyed.
And with that, she puffed up like a blowfish.
“He might do that to some weak girl. But he won’t do that to a strong girl like me!”
{extended}Monday, August 09, 2010
Cat carrier
8 years ago, I was walking around China with Eliana strapped to my chest in a carrier.
8 years later, Eliana is walking around with Sagwa strapped to HER chest in the same carrier.
Poor Sagwa.
