I’m going to go ahead and admit this…I am not an overachiever in the school volunteering department.  In fact, I’m lucky if I get there once a month!  However, the truth is, I do enjoy it when I’m there, I just lose track of time and before I know it we are at 19 days left in the school year.  Yep… only 19 school days left to get all your ducks in a row for summer.  Panic mode is setting in for all moms.  We have to get all camps figured out, carpooling for the camps, quickly get skinny and in shape for swimsuit season, run every errand you ever thought you might need to so you don’t have to take your kids with you and end up buying them stuff they don’t need to keep them from meltdown mode, and possibly plan a summer vacation.  All this and I still LOVE SUMMER…it is by far my favorite time of the year.  But before we get our excited summer butterflies, we still have A LOT to cram in to the end of the school year-like projects and field trips.

Drew was star of the week last week which means he had to fill in a poster, decorate it and add pictures.  Drew is not artsy-craftsy at all!  So we made it through that task with some sisterly help!  He was mostly excited to bring in his trophies to share; particularly his big golf trophy from last summer.  The instructions are very specific…do NOT bring in anything very valuable or breakable!  This was not deterring him so I offered to bring it up to the school for him.  Seriously, you know those trophies snap in half by practically looking at them wrong…especially a thin golf club!  He also brought in his lizard that we painted in Mexico a few years ago which is extremely breakable and has already been super-glued once or twice.  However, I absolutely love that he always wants to share that lizard.  It just solidifies that it was a very memorable vacation for him!  Brian also managed to sneak up to the school to eat lunch with him so I’d say he really had a great star of the week 2nd grade debut!

Now he is frantically working on his science book project that is due on Friday.  This little 8 year old guy is busy…how’s he supposed to get that done when he has baseball tourneys every weekend and either soccer or baseball practice every weeknight?  The one time we tried to start on it, he fell asleep in the middle of the floor for 3 hours wiped out from allergy medicine!  So here he is last night trying to get back on track.  Don’t be blinded by his muscles….you have to be comfortable when you are working on an important project right!?  Soon Brian will be coaching him on giving his oral presentation to the class.  We will be choosing our wardrobe more wisely.

 

I really only try to sign up and hopefully get picked  for the field trip locations that interest me (sounds selfish I know) but I have a lot on my plate so why not choose my volunteer opportunities carefully!?  Anyway, there are usually so many parents that want to go on field trips that they have to draw names for who goes.  So when an opportunity came up to go on a “walking field trip” with Jake’s 4th grade class, I jumped on it for a couple reasons.  It was from 10:30-11:30 (short and sweet and no need to get a babysitter for Reece), I like to exercise vs. riding a bus, and I completely realize that my days are numbered that Jakey wants to be seen within a 1 mile radius of me!  So we put on our boots and walked to the pond near the school and learned all about the critters living in there.  Top choice of field trip, not really, but the fact that Jake was excited I was going was enough for me.  He likes to hang with his buddies, Ian, Talis, & Sam Ortega and I did try to keep them on task but I’m not sure I did the best job.

I guess this is why I’m not a teacher!  Jake and I had envisioned ourselves tromping through the water with nets catching frogs and leeches and stuff but we actually had to stay on the concrete path and the critters were brought to us.  Oh well…we can dream I guess.  He will only be in 4th grade once and before I know it, I’ll be teaching him how to manage a locker combination in Middle School!  So Jake, PLEASE PLEASE choose me to come on your field trips and any other special day at school any time…I’m so IN buddy (even if you act squirrely with your friends)!!