The Girlchick cuts her hair - first edition

So The Girlchick got an idea to cut her "bangs" from a Miranda Lambert song...... "I cut my bangs with the rusty kitchen scissors....."  Then she went and cut her "bangs", which is actually just a little tuft of hair really close to her scalp.  I wouldn't have even noticed if I wasn't trying to pull her hair back in a pony tail and couldn't figure out why this one little section was sticking up and wouldn't go down.  Then I looked a little closer.  Then I asked her.... and of course she denied it, then she finally fessed up.  But the story is still a little off.  First she told Daddy that she didn't.  Then she finally fessed up to me that she did.  That she did it in school and her teacher Ms. Seema knew about it and she did it with the teachers scissors.  When we asked the school about it they said no it didn't happen at school.  Then later she told her dad that she got the idea from the above mentioned song.  So we may never know what actually happened beyond the fact that she cut her hair.  It could have been a lot worse.  Let's just hope there is no more inspiration for wild and crazy songs, or we will have to stick to kiddy songs for her.

I'm pretty sure I never cut my own hair, although GaGa tells me that Nathan did.  I'm pretty sure that this is a right of passage for most kids.

barely visible tuft up front.  a little close to the scalp that makes me nervous.

Memorial Day

My Dad passed away March 7, 2012.  He was buried at Houston National Cemetery in Houston.  I have not been back to his grave since the day we buried him.  I even told my brother that I might never go.  It's not something I like to do, I don't like to be sad and dwell on it.  It's a personal choice.  This memorial day I decided that I might want to go visit his grave and to put a flag on it and some flowers and a yellow ribbon.  This year was the first year that the Houston cemetery was putting all the flags on the graves and having a big ceremony.  It was a little nuts with all the people and really darn hot!  But we made it.  The Girlchick was really excited to go and put flowers on his grave and the flag and the ribbon.  She was full of questions.  Like why the yellow roses and not other pretty flowers.  I told her it was because the first time I came to Houston to visit my dad when I was close to her age, my dad gave me a yellow rose as I was leaving to go back home.  Why  the flags?  It's a symbol of our freedom as a country and a reminder of the service that our military men and women do for our country.  It's a day to honor the ones that we have lost.  So this year this was our honor.

We also had tickets to the baseball game that afternoon.  We had planned to try and take the whole family, but the boys were really really tired, so we decided to keep them home so they could take a nap (which they didn't do) and The Girlchick and her dad went to the game.  They had a great time.

The Girlchick's Kindergarten Graduation

It's really weird to me that there is the big to do and "graduation" ceremony from kindergarten.  We didn't do that when I was younger.  You just went on to first grade.  Not the case these days.  It is such a big deal that they have to find a place big enough and then they still have to split it into 2 groups.  They rented out one of the smaller auditoriums at the Berry center.  Which is where the school district has plays and other events.  So it's a big place.  The kids that are graduating are on the stage first and receive their medals and diploma and sing a song for all of us.  Then they go back to their classroom groups and come back out to sing with their individual classes.  It is fun to see them be silly on stage and to see them perform, but it's a bit unnecessary to have the whole graduation from kindergarten. 

Her medal, her flowers, and her crown from when they sang "I just can't wait to be king" from the lion king.

Singing with all of the graduating Kindergarten class.  "I'm on my way"  It did make me tear up just a bit!

Singing "I just can't wait to be king" from the Lion King with her actual class.  Since it is a Montessori school there are kids in age from 3-6 in the actual class.

The Girlchick amazes me

We have known that The Girlchick was smart, but I really had no idea how smart she really was. 

She had her testing done back in early April.  I was worried with how she was going to do since the whole standardized testing is new to her and she struggled with the prep they did at school.

Well I should not have been worried.  She nailed it.  She beyond nailed it!  She hit a grand slam with all the bases loaded and completely knocked it 100 yards over the fence!

We got her test scores back.  She was in the 99th percentile for everything except vocabulary.  For that she was ranked in the 92nd percentile.  She is only 6 after all - how much vocab can she actually have?  How they do the ranking is by how many kids took the test around that same time nationally.  So she is ranked pretty high on a national scale.  They even have what they call a grade equivalent score - for most things she was 2.5 and higher, which means that she has understanding and doing work over and above 2nd grade.  Her vocab was only a 1.9.  But her word association was a 3.5 which completely blew me away. 

What I worry about now is if the public school gifted and talented program is going to be enough to keep her engaged and liking school.  I talked to one of the first grade GT teachers at the school that she will attend.  I have to say that I was not too impressed.  Again.  They follow the same curriculum as the regular first graders, but give them more comprehension work.  Getting more into the stories and making sure they understand the full story and can go into details and explain it to someone else.  Or like working with the clock and time - instead of just doing the face of the clock they go into 1/2 hours and 1/4 hours.  Or they have them write full stories.  This is all stuff that she is already doing.  Plus when they test them they test to see what level they are at.  The problem with that is if they test above a full grade higher they can't teach them at that level.  They can only go 1 grade above.  It's a district wide rule. 

What we have decided for the mean time is to put her in public school, let them test her for GT and see how she does.  If it doesn't work then we start looking at private schools.  I never thought I would have to be worried about her being too smart and what the heck to do with her so that she is challenged enough. 

Darn it I knew she was too smart for her own good!

Nastiness

I mentioned in the boys birthday post that Thing 1 wasn't feeling very good at their party.  That night he ended up throwing up and started running a fever on Sunday.  Sunday night it started to get really high, it was 103.8 with both Tylenol and Ibuprofen.  I was worried that we were going to have to take him to the ER.  The after hours nurse said told us that if it got higher than 104-105 that we needed to take him in.  He had a rough night Sunday night and stayed in our bed with us in just his diaper.  He started with the nasty diarreha on Sunday as well.  It took almost 2 weeks for that to go away.  I was hoping that it was just going to be him, but Thing 2 started with it on Tuesday and The Girlchick on Thursday.  Both Nathan and I had some issues as well but it wasn't the vomiting part just the other stomach issues part.  Thing 2 ended up having it a bit worse (but got over it a bit faster), he had a higher fever and eventually he ended up having to go to the ER since he had multiple occasions of blood in his stool.  They tested both boys for all sorts of bacteria and it all came back negative (of course, when would they ever have a test result come back and say they have this, or that....... that would be never).  Fast forward a few weeks and we are all finally healthy.  It took awhile for it all to work itself out of everyone's systems.  That was one nasty bug!

Thing 2 home from school showing that he is feeling better and a very bendy baby

Poor Sleepy boy waiting to see the dr at TCH - but he was happy and so good even feeling like he did

Thing 2  sitting in the TCH ER bed eating crackers to try and get him to poop.  Which he did - on command

In the midst of all of the sickness they had a follow up appt with their ENT - They ask you at the check in desk if they have certain symptoms and since they did - they made them wear the masks of shame.

Things I love

I love the hugs and kisses I get from the kids. 

I love when I get home on Mondays that I'm greeted with very excited, happy to see me, can't wait to hug me kids.

I love it when we are sitting on the couch hanging out, the boys like to sit next me and be close or touching me in some way.

Thing 1 sitting next to me on the couch with his foot on my knee

I love it at night (after they have settled down) when we get ready for bed and do rocky bye.  I love to just hold them and they snuggle up.  They are getting to the age where they don't want to be held very often so I love that I still have this time with them to reconnect after not seeing them in the mornings.

I love that The Girlchick is her own person and dresses how she wants to in what makes her feel pretty.  Even if it doesn't match or isn't the coolest.  But she is who she is and likes what she likes (she is constantly telling us this).