Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Back to it

A lot has happened in the past few weeks.
Sean went to some summer camps at his old school, and as I talked with some people there I heard about a public Montessori school opening this fall. The school has been in existence for a long time, probably at least 50 years, but just transitioned to Montessori this year.
I was already planning for homeschool this year, but decided to look into the public school as a possibility for us. We visited, talked to some staff, I looked online, did some more research, and went back a couple more times and decided to go for it. It is out of our district, so I had to get a release form signed and there was a bit of paperwork to fill out, but it was really painless to enroll there. I made this decision for a couple of reasons. 1) I think he needs the opportunity to collaborate with other Montessori students on works, and 2) this school is free!
This all happened in the first couple of weeks in August.
August was a busy month for my work as we adjusted to some transitions. This month is proving to be pretty busy already.
About mid-August our beautiful brown Newfoundland dog was not feeling well. She was old, and I think she must have been between 10 and 11 years old. She was an older dog when we got her at 5 years old. I think we got her in 2005, but it could have been 2004. 
I was in the middle of deadlines the second and third week of August, and she was starting to have more troubles so I was up every couple of hours during the night with her. 
She passed away Aug. 27. 
Sadie Girl 2010
Sean turned 8 on Aug. 25th, and he started school Sept. 2, so he has had a busy few weeks. He's so funny. He doesn't really like a lot of fanfare for his birthday. (He HATES when people sing Happy Birthday.)
We have always had a party, usually at the park, with a few friends from his old school. This year he only wanted a party here at our house and only one guest, his friend who lives across the street.
I decorated with streamers the night before so he could wake up to a celebration day. I was hoping to have the day off, but I was working all day off and on and just tried to keep it low key. I would clean in the kitchen and answer a few emails, and was on the phone as little as possible. 
It wasn't much of a party. It was impromptu, and I hadn't even baked the cake when his friend came over. He came back the next day and had cake.
He doesn't like having his picture taken, but I did get one of the table and decorations. I forgot to take a picture of the gifts before he opened them. He got art supplies (two packs of paint brushes and a small easel) a book, a Star Wars pack with an attachment for his Republic Gunship, and three locks. He had been wanting some combination locks for a long time and I kept saying no. He always found them at the most expensive places, like a convenience store or something. I stumbled on them as I was browsing at Big Lots and remembered. They were his favorite thing, I think. He slept with one of them that night.

He helped decorate the cake, so it's pretty creative.Those are peanut m&m's on top. 



Here's the first picture of him as an 8 year old. We were at a festival in our community and I bought him an all-day pass for the inflatables. He loved it. You can tell from the socks that he had been playing for a while :-)




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