May, as probably all the parents of school-aged children probably feel, has been a berzerker. We made it through the usual pile of end of school year events and celebrations, but we added in the extra pain of illness, car repairs, and unexpected schedule changes just to make it truly memorable!

Maya the male mallard duck

First up was the kindergarten pond expo. Maya loves ducks. They are second only to octopuses in her hierarchy of beloved creatures. So when she told us she wanted to dress up as a duck for the pond expo, we weren’t surprised. After all, Maya explained to us, there are no freshwater octopuses. This was meant to be a student-driven project, so we talked about the kinds of ducks she had seen at the ponds she’s visited, but all the decisions and most of the execution were her own. She loves the color green, so she decided she’d be a male mallard. Then she set about designing her costume. I drew the shape of her wings, tied elastic for her feet and super-glued her mask together, but she did all the cutting, painting, and drawing otherwise, and all the ideas were hers. She even had to redesign her duck bill because the first iteration flat-out did not work. It was a very good project. (Funny aside … There were many ducks at the kids’ pond expo, but except for Maya, they were all of the yellow, rubber ducky variety. I’m pretty proud of her!)

Maya LOVES her kindergarten teacher

Teacher appreciation week hit us like an anvil to a coyote. We love our teachers and certainly wanted the kids to show them that, but doing a different thing for each kid every day of the week proved to be pretty wearisome. Maya was all in the entire time; she absolutely LOVES her kindergarten teacher. Ian was interested for the first day or two, but after that, he was kind of half-heartedly playing along.

Ian, spring 2019, age 4

Ian did finally manage to get his spring picture day at school, and of course the photos were adorable. These are the first professional photos we’ve gotten with his glasses, and seriously, that cute little turd just can’t help himself.

Happy mother’s day!

Mother’s Day was a low-key affair. I had breakfast at Ian’s school the Friday before. For the weekend though, I just wanted to not have to cook (and further not make any of the plans or decisions for takeout), and I wanted to hang out with the kids and put together my fancy, new Lego Saturn V rocket set. We spent most of the weekend building it in stages. Ian, understandably, didn’t have the patience to sit quite as long, but he did build some, and  Maya the Lego queen helped me build a fair bit of it. The kids made me really pretty bracelets as well, at the very last minute, of course!

Happy mother’s day rocket!

Ian had been sick the weekend before Mother’s Day – random fever, reduced appetite, otherwise no symptoms. He was better within a couple days. Maya was vomiting for a few days, seemed to get better, and then suddenly was sick again. Right in between those two bouts of illness, Maya managed to squeeze in an art show. She and the other kids in her after school art class assembled trifold displays filled with their artwork. She was supposed to present her work to me and the other parents. Mostly though, she asked how long it would be till she could have some of the punch and cookies offered as post-art-show treats.

Art show!

Maya’s second illness wound up being STREP! I’d never have guessed it. She never complained of her throat hurting and was not really coughing at all. She barfed once and ran a fever. It took the nurses no time though to decide on a strep test and the results of the rapid strep test came back so quickly that our doctor called it before they even told him. The upshot of this is that within 24 hours of starting amoxicillin, she was considered non-contagious, though we let her rest another day beyond that because she was just so worn out!

Tiny dancer’s getting to be a big kid

Ian’s big dance recital was on the 18th. He sported a dazzling silver vest over his favorite rainbow shirt, and his moves were on point. The best part of course is that he seemed so happy and proud of himself! Funny aside: There was a photographer at the event and we went ahead and purchased the photo package he was offering. All the other parents had been explaining which kid was theirs so he’d know which action shots belonged to which family. I started to explain Ian’s outfit and whatnot and the guy kind of cocked his head at me, grinned, and said, something like, “Yeah, I’ll remember him.” I guess being one of only a couple boys the whole day and wearing glasses and a rainbow shirt to boot, he was bound to stand out.

The kids love guinea-pig sitting

The next week, we took care of the McKee-Starling clan’s guinea pigs, which the kids absolutely loved. Sadly, since then, one of these very old and well-loved piggies has passed away.

Bye, bye kindergarten

This was also Maya’s last week of school. Kindergarten has been a very good experience for Maya, and she was in a complicated state of happy-sad about it being over. She loved her teacher. She had friends she enjoyed playing with. She seemed to genuinely enjoy learning new things. We went to her end-of-year party and took silly pictures of her with her friends and watched the play they put on, called The Lonely Fish. Maya played the part of an octopus.

This summer, Maya has been hanging out at Ian’s preschool. Ian, of course, is thrilled that his big sister is coming to his school. Maya seems to be enjoying the mental break (though her teacher asked us very early on if we could send her with an age-appropriate workbook, so maybe she’s not taking that much of a break). We’re doing a couple of local summer reading programs as well, so hopefully those fancy new kindergarten skills don’t atrophy too much. So far, it’s all been going well, and at this point, we have less than a month till Maya starts first grade, and Ian is back to flying solo at preschool.