Surviving the first few days of summer break
I should write a survivor’s guide for all the parents out there who are already pulling out their hair now that school has ended.
I have survived many things and have determined that I shall prevail this summer as well.
The last day of school was the calm before the storm. As my teens expressed relief that the school year was over, I prepared for the onslaught of what I call ’I'm bored-itis’.
I didn’t expect it to start just one day after school ended … but I was armed and ready for battle.
As I sat working at my desk, it started with a few phone calls from my daughter.
“I’m bored,” she said on the first call.
“Now, I’m really bored,” she said on the second call, following these words with a huge sigh.
“This is horrible! I’m sooo bored!,” she said on the third call.
Three strikes and you are out.
Never mind that much time and attention has been spent on coordinating a summer full of activities. Never mind that beginning next week she has more than enough commitments that will last well into August. Never mind that she’ll be begging me for a few hours to simply do nothing come July.
No, ‘I’m bored-itis’ had truly set in.
At the ready, I pulled out my secret weapon. Three words that are guaranteed to get rid of that summer plague everytime:
“Clean your room!,” I told her.
Silence.
More silence.
“Hello?,” I said, wondering if she had dropped the phone.
“Guess I’ll let you go,” she mumbled.
“Sure! … And uh don’t forget to clean your room.”
Works every time.
– Carla
What’s in, what’s out at the lost-and-found style show
Dirty, stinky clothes were out but nice jackets, sweaters, mismatched flip-flops and jeans were in during the Lost-and-Found Fashion Show held at Chisholm Elementary School this week.
The style show at the Edmond school started nine years ago when Principal Joanne Graham arrived and it continues to be a hit. It’s also a great way to return missing clothes to the proper owners.
And “stylin’” they were in discarded sweatshirts, jackets, ball caps, lunch boxes, shoes and more. Modeling were fifth-grade members of the “Chargies Kidz Council” at Chisholm. The style show had so many items that it required about 40 models to show them off.
Models picked out silly names like “Ravishing Robin,” were announced by emcees and strutted onto stage to music, sometimes carrying a lost lunch box as well.The students in the audience who recognized what they were wearing raised their hand, and the model dropped by to remove the “found” item and hand it over to the correct owner.
“We got rid of about a fourth of the stuff we modeled,” Graham said.
By the end of the day the lost-and-found box was reduced by about half as students claimed more items that were displayed in the cafeteria after the style show.
The remaining items will be donated to charity by the end of the year.
What puzzles Graham was the amount of shoes that ended up in the mountainous lost-and-found box — a pair of red boots, a single, mismatched flip-flop and more.
“How do you go home without your shoes on?” she asked.
Who knows? But what a great, practical and fun way to end the school’s assembly line-up for the year.
Happy summer! (soon)
~ Lillie-Beth
Two days, two firsts
My 5-year-old graduated from pre-kindergarten last night. Well, one of them anyways. She attends a half-day pre-k program at our neighborhood public school. Then a few days a week, she finishes the day at our company’s childcare center run by the YMCA. It’s from the latter that she officially graduated during a cute program that included a prayer, a patriotic song, the Pledge of Allegiance, 26 short songs that covered the alphabet and a touching video and song tribute about their great-grandparents as guardian angels. I might have even teared up, had I not been alternately wielding a video camera and sharing chase-the-toddler duties with my husband. She was most concerned about what she was going to wear. When I told her she needed to dress up, her predictable reply was, “As what?” I picked out an adorable turquoise dress with bright-colored polka dots. She was having none of that, demanding to know why I didn’t grab the dress she had set out. She won that disagreement. It was her graduation after all.
Then today she lost her first tooth and a potential crisis was averted. Yesterday, she asked if loose teeth changed colors. I said no and didn’t give it another thought. Until this morning. I noticed her wiggly tooth was a shade of gray and her gum was red. The dentist said to bring her on in so she could check it out. But when I picked her up from school, she was all grins, with an empty space where one of teachers had pulled it. No need to see the dentist. And no need to worry that trauma would make her terrified of losing the next tooth. Turns out, this particular teacher is a tooth-pulling expert! Now, to figure out what the tooth fairy pays these days … Christy
Do you have your child’s birth certificate?
I knew where it had to be. Yes, I did have Cade’s birth certificate, or, at least that’s what I told the school officials as we planned for my 3-year-old to begin school.
But after sifting through stacks of papers, opening legal-sized envelopes, digging through my cedar chest and emptying drawers, I decided I really, truly had never ordered copies of Cade’s birth certificate.
I felt guilty, disorganized. Why hadn’t I taken care of this? But then I started thinking about some of the little obstacles we had to overcome when Cade was born, how he had to undergo light treatment for about a week for jaundice, how his blood had to be tested constantly for about two months because the numbers were not exactly where they were supposed to be, and how we had to go through a liver scan … We were a little busy.
And then, life kind of evened out. Trips to the hospital became less frequent, and we went on about our business, dealing with normal everyday “stuff.”
When I found my middle daughter’s birth certificate last week, guess what? I had ordered her’s right before she started school. … Maybe I wasn’t such a bad, forgetful mother, after all.
So, today, I went to the Oklahoma Department of Health and stood in line to get what I should have gotten a few years ago. It wasn’t a great experience, but it wasn’t so terribly awful either.
I stood in a long line – it was a Monday and other parents were having to enroll their kids, too, and they needed their children’s birth certificates. Yes, the man behind me carried on a colorful conversation peppered with every expletive you could imagine on his cell phone, and after standing in that line, I had to stand in another line to pay … and then I had to wait for my number to be called. But the people assisting everyone were friendly.
And then it was done. I had my son’s birth certificate – four copies – you never know when you’re going to need an extra.
So, here’s some advice. If you have children and you haven’t gotten their birth certificates, go ahead and take care of that today. You can mail in your request or you can go to the Health Department, 1000 NE 10th St. If you go in person, print off the form ahead of time, fill it out, and then all you have to do is step into line. You won’t have to worry that you’ve forgotten information or misplaced your ID, because you’ll already know you need it.
And, then, when you enroll your kids in school, and someone asks if you have their birth certificates, you can say, “Yes,” and know that it’s true. - Linda
My little sheep are sleepy
My family’s schedule will have to adjust. Cade turned 3 on April 21, and that means he’s eligible to attend public schools. My husband and I found out Cade had Down syndrome within an hour of his birth, so each little step since then has been a learning experience for all of us.
Now, it’s how to get three children to three different schools in the morning and then get myself to work on time. I’m pretty cheery in the morning, but my two daughters, ages 13 and 9, get a little nauseated if they hurry too much. So, the challenge is how to juggle and enable them to help make this work.
OK. I’ve made my kids a little too helpless. I fix their bowls of cereal or toast or sliced banana … then I wake them up (one at a time), encourage them that it’s going to be a great day … and then they curl back up on the couch to take another nap. ugh.
I feel like a sheep herder, but my sheep have vertigo – they keep going in circles or lying down. Well, today I told them times are changing. We have to all get up at the same time, get ready and scurry on our way.
Cade was the first one ready to go today. - Linda
