As we approach the end of the school year, we get busier and busier. We keep having to tell ourselves that in this marathon that is the school year we are in the last few miles of it and can see the finish line. I'm doubtful at this point that we have enough gas in the tank to make it.
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| May the 4th tribute |
I will start this week review, then, with the G and his castmates getting to do a workshop day with the Nolan Theater Club. They worked on the play all day with lunch included, then performed for parents, friends and teachers in the afternoon. I was so happy this came together because it meant my mom, Joel, and Jav's mom and sister could watch G do his power performance (at one point he plays Cinderella, both of her stepsisters, her stepmother, the prince, and some crazy tweeting birds - all in the same scene.) Below are G's cast in white, surrounded by the Nolan kids. What a great thing to be able to do!
Sunday we had one of our favorite annual events: the cub scout hike at Tandy Hills Prairie. It was beautiful (a little hot maybe), and we had the best turnout we've ever had. The wildflowers are amazing this spring and this is the best place in Tarrant County to see them in my opinion. An Eagle scout who lives on the border of Tandy Hills was our guide. After a long snack break, he took off at a very rapid clip and only 5 of us (including Gabriel, Joel and me) could keep up. Sidenote: My boys ROCK at hiking after all the trips we've taken!!! Well, we got separated because everyone behind us took a wrong fork in the road. Henry went back to find them but didn't come back for quite awhile. We thought we heard someone yelling so started blowing our whistles and they blew theirs back until we met back up again..but still no Henry! It's bad when your guide gets lost! He eventually found us and we all finished together. Things learned by all: Check every once in awhile on the people behind you, and after you blow your whistle a couple of times stop to hear a reply.
We are having another really wet spring, and are thankful to have rain but we always seem to get so much at one time we have floods. And the weather experts are predicting many tornadoes this spring/summer which is terrifying.
A casualty of all the rain, also, is Joel's new baseball team. We had many problems in the Fall when we switched to Select, combining the best of his former team and both the father and son coaches (Jake and Scott) he's had since he was 4 with a new father and son coach set and all of their best players. It worked pretty well, just were frustrated with the rain and not being able to play or practice as much. But they got to play a couple of tournaments and all was moving in a good direction. Then after the season ended, the new father and son team just quit, out of the blue. And a third of the team quit with them.
Jake and Scott regrouped and teamed up with a coach from an Irving league. This time it has been much more rough to transition. And then the rains have caused cancelation after cancelation. My youngest kid LIVES to play and is sad when he doesn't get to. No idea where we will go after this season ends, something I'm trying to learn to live with as a control freak. We may ditch Select for now and go back to regular league play.
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| Joel's 2nd season of tee ball, 5 years old |
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| The Bandits, his current team - Eli (next to Joel) and Weston(hidden) have been on his team since the pic at left was taken. |
Gabriel and Joel had both competed at academic PSIA back in March. Joel did spelling (which I had coached) and math. Did well on spelling but did not make top six. Had trouble in Math because of a combination of poor coaching 😠and the fact that he had to pee really bad during the entire test. Boys. 😖 Gabriel, though, at the last minute was asked to compete in Music Memory by his school music teacher. I knew he would be good at it because he's been able to hear details in music since he was 2. But there was SO much more to it than just listening to the pieces and remembering them. And the music teacher that was supposed to coach them didn't do her homework and didn't seem to want to give any of her time for it. FRUSTRATING. We never received any sheet about what the test would be like since he started practicing late. When he took the district test it was much harder than he had anticipated. There is also a section of multiple choice questions about each composer and then a set about music terms like Chromatic Scale and Antiphony vs. Polyphony. He thought he tanked it. We were driving home from Denton when my cell phone lit up with text after text telling us he had won first place!!! Either the judges were a little lax or the other kids knew even less than he had.
We took him to TCU for State yesterday. He and I had been studying almost every night for the past two weeks, and I thought he had a good chance of medaling (top six). That is, until I showed up for my grading position for 7/8 grade music memory. I found out that they had to write the music selection, major work and composer EXACTLY how they had them on their practice sheets. If a hyphen was missing, it was 2 points off. If it was not capitalized and should have been, 2 points off, and vice versa. If the accent over Gliére was going the wrong way or not over the "e", 2 points off. Sigh sigh sigh sigh. No one ever told us that. I knew it would bite G and it did. He wrote "Take 5" twice and it should have been "Take Five". He didn't hyphenate "Hoe-down" by Aaron Copland. He only missed one multiple choice and one music selection, and I think would have medaled if not for the mistakes.
But such is life. An ongoing and sometimes grueling learning experience. I am considering volunteering to be the PSIA representative next year so our principle does not have to do it. It will involve much work, organizing coaches and sessions, making lists and spreadsheets to keep track of which kid is in which event, making sure everyone knows what time they need to be there, etc. It will easily replace my volunteer hours I was worried about losing when I stepped down from the Advisory Council. My first order of business will be to recruit coaches that WANT to help these kids win, not just fill their hour with some practice problems/whatever and go home. Coaches that will read over the requirements of the competition and have the kids completely prepared for what hits them. Gabriel was mega disappointed because we had worked so hard for nothing, but of course it wasn't really for nothing. We will be so ready next year. But no kid that is brave enough to put themselves out there and compete should be left flabbergasted that they did not know a major requirement of the competition.
I will leave you with my book I just finished and absolutely loved this month:
It's loosely based on what Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham's relationship would have been like back in the early days of Fleetwood Mac. Reese Witherspoon is making a movie version.
And here are some pics from the St. Rita baseball team, whose season ended a couple of weeks ago. Jav was the head coach and Gabriel played. They had half the team that had never played before. This of course hurt them but they came a long way by that last game. I was really proud of G, he found his confidence and was hitting the ball really well, and making outs at 3rd. They are only losing two 8th graders so hopefully everyone will come back next year so they can pickup where they left off and keep improving.
