Today was another volunteer day at Brandon’s school. I sent Peyton off to school by 730am, while Brandon was having a FIT that he couldn’t wear his costume in the car ride. He said, “Well, my teacher told me to put on my costume AT HOME!” He was so literal, and couldn’t get over the fact that she meant put it on before going to school. I asked him if he wanted to walk to school, but that I needed to drive because of the cupcakes that I brought. He calmed down, when I told him we’d get changed in front of the school, and would walk over to his classroom, since he couldn’t play on the structures with it on. I took a picture outside of the school after putting it on. He thought that was all that was needed and was going to take it off! I told him that he needed to line up with his friends and then go to the parade. We walked over to the class, and he was embarrassed as everyone was smiling at him and pointing at his costume. He hid behind me for awhile until he got more comfortable in his new “skin”. When the bell rang, all the kids lined up and headed out for the parade. The kinders were the last to go around, so they were pretty restless. The parents, as always, were just as unruly as the kids. I still don’t get how you can expect kids to follow the rules when their parents cannot. There were cones set up behind which parents were supposed to stand. Upon learning of this rule, I parked myself behind a cone, while 90% of the other parents stood in front of me. I stood behind a more vocal parent who was videotaping, so I benefited from his insistence on clearing his space. So, we were chatting it up during the parade, and he was telling me it is always a huge turnout of parents and dressed up kids. Even if the kids don’t dress up, they still have to parade (which is a bit of an embarrassment, and makes for some peer pressure to dress up). Some parents made their younger kids, who don’t attend the school, parade with their older siblings. After about 45 minute assembly, the kids were dismissed to their classrooms, where we took more pictures. Again, the parents hung out about 10 feet from the kids, which was about 10 feet too close for my lens. I needed about 20 feet, and when I did this, I only got parents’ behinds. Lovely. I stopped trying…in fact, I’d rather just have Brandon in the picture and not all these random kids and their parents’ backsides. Rude! And these parents all leave, while I go help set up the fall festival with a small group of other PTA parents. I figured I’d have two hours before going to Brandon’s lunchtime duty, so I helped set up tables, canopies, decorate tables, and set up chips and water. The festival is for the entire community and all the families of the school. I was doing some pretty manual labor, not knowing what I was getting myself into. Good thing my back isn’t hurting anymore! And good thing Dave wasn’t there, since there weren’t many dads there and those that were, were doing lots of manual labor. I went to Brandon’s class at 1115am, as they were on rainy day schedule, since the playground was busy with the festival prep. The noon aide was already there when I got there. She explained that if there are no parents, she could potential be in charge of 4 rooms, each with 20 kids. I couldn’t imagine! As it was, there were three of us in the room, and even then, the kids, including mine, were not listening. I guess since it was such a small area, they were really restless, and chomping at the bit to go play after eating. This one girl was like a girl-version of Brandon, only I couldn’t yell at her like I would have if it were Brandon. She just smirked at me, and I had to repeat myself several times to her. She was also the one I’d noticed being mean to another little girl last week. Oh, and this girl is the same size if not bigger than Brandon. Not just a skinny, tall girl, but she was size for size matched with him. I know this because at some point, she and he faced off with one another, and neither wanted to get out of the other’s way. Brandon finally got bored, and went around. After lunch, the kids all knew what to do, playing with their games and puzzles. The boys took out the letter bingo, and one of them started pulling out letters, choosing to be the caller instead of one of the contestants. I thought it was pretty cool he’d rather do that than put the chips on the board. The kids were pretty easy going at this point, and before I knew it, the teacher came back! She got all the kids to clean up the messy area within two minutes. Brandon gave me a hug goodbye, then another little girl, the quiet shy one, came over and gave me a hug similar to Brandon’s. I was a bit surprised! But it was cute. I went back to help set up where I left off. It was only another 45 minutes before I had to go back to pick Brandon up. Packed with 25 tickets (well, 24, since I used one for chips that I had been stacking and finally succumbed) – we headed around to try most of the games. There were long lines, but Brandon was okay waiting in them. I really wanted nachos, so I shared those with Brandon (he didn’t know I’d eaten chips already). Let’s preface that I don’t usually eat so much junk, but I hadn’t eaten anything except a PB&J I’d made after we dropped Peyton off before Brandon’s school started. I was starving! We also took a photo booth picture with his teacher. Originally it was going to be just Brandon and his teacher, but he wanted me in it, too. So we flanked him, and we got a polaroid-type picture. He’d never seen the picture shoot out of a camera before
After about two hours, we went to the bake sale to get some goodies to take home. Since he didn’t have that great of a day in the class, I told him he couldn’t have any goodies, but he had to get something for his sister. He agreed and picked out a pink cake pop for her. I’d never seen so many baked goods. Muscle relaxation is achieved through increased viagra canada prescription release of nitric oxide which in turn relaxes penile muscles. It is an ideal levitra online no prescription choice for men who suffer from impotence. cheap generic tadalafil These mechanisms search for keywords, as is the case in Bayesian filters, or entire phrases, as is the case in Markovian filters. Through online you can search and download our free antivirus software. cialis professional effects canterburymewscooperative.com In my LIFE! It took several of us, multiple trips to bring all the food from the kitchen to the set up area. And most of it was handmade, but looked professionally done. So Brandon and I made several passes through, and finally opted for some bundtini’s, which I know Dave will appreciate, since he doesn’t really dig homemade things. We went home, and I had Brandon practice his writing and spelling. It’s the only time I get him alone, without distraction, and when I can focus with just him. We also did some math problems since he’d had some problems doing some addition problems at the one educational game. The game he rocked was to throw toilet paper rolls, which had been taped so as not to unravel, at a toilet seat. He made two out of three! He also got a tic tac toe, but that was assisted, since he missed twice and got to re-throw. So he made 3 out of 5 attempts to make a straight line. We went to pick up Peyton, who was in the middle of movie day, dressed in her jammies. She was happy to see us, but upset to have to leave because her friends were watching her movie, Tinkerbell. I convinced her to leave so that we could go home and watch it, since she kept her underwear dry all day long (this is probably the third full week she’s not had an accident at school!!). We came home, watched it, and I was dozing off, but Peyton was sure to say, “Mommy, are you sleeping, Mommy?” I have to find our card reader now, so I can update some of the pictures taken today.