Art Show 2007

Each year, Graham's school holds an art show where the child care center is transformed into an art museum. The director introduces herself to each visitor to the museum as the curator, and makes the student the art museum guide. Graham chose for us to see the kindergarten room first, rather than his own room, mostly so he could explore where he would be going this summer!

Graham's class has been studying all things medieval -- knights, castles, dragons, princes and princesses -- including chivalric behavior. The other night I was bestowed with the most solemn bow in place of a "you're welcome". He also explained to me how people must address a king -- apparently they appointed "king/queen for a day" and Graham got to be the first child to be king. I am greatly appreciative that he did not inform us of this when he got home, but otherwise acted in a normal fashion. I was informed a few days later of his gracious behavior and good sportsmanship as king. The children made a castle out of recycled products, made flags for the castle, made shields, and worked with modeling clay to build something related to knights. For reasons only known to him, Graham decided to make "an alien king who lives in the castle and has many knight students and lives with his alien queen". There was also a display relating to a sand castle that they built in which each child was quoted regarding what they learned about castles. Graham said "I know everything about dragons. I know everything about everything. Frost dragons are nice and cold and fire dragons are hot and full of fire." Wonder where he learned to know everything about everything! His father says that's my fault -- I would tend to agree. I've included a picture of his flag above.

Graham has still not shown much interest in drawing actual shapes and people, although he can when pressed. He likes the Jackson Pollock method the best, and may be working on some other methods for which I do not know if there is a name. A lot of his people have only one eye, and they have many legs. This is a drawing he did on his magnadoodle of our family. Don't ask me who is who.

Sugaring 2007

Well, global warming has affected the sugaring here in New Hampshire. We kept waiting and waiting and waiting for Popa to call and tell us that he needed our help sugaring, but the call never came. We all thought (and Mom dreaded) that the big run would come while Popa was in Florida with his golf team, but it was bitterly cold that week, luck for Mom! But not so lucky for Autumn who left a message on Popa's answering machine that he played over and over to encourage him in his task "please, Poppy, I need more syrup!" I think he ended up making less than a gallon -- and he usually makes 10!

Graham had fun, nonetheless. And I think he made himself sick from eating too much syrup. We had sugar on snow, too! I'm not sure what's going on in this picture, but it looks like there's some big decision being made, don't you think?

Okay, so I am not so reliable

Well, my intentions were good, but then I actually starting (collective gasp!) trying to exercise in the morning before Graham got up because that was the only time I had to myself. Well, tonight, Mr. Graham asked (yes, you read that right) to sleep in his own bed! I am going to win this battle yet! So, I got some extra time to work on my pathetic attempts at blogging. And, of course, I found that Melissa and Deana were ahead of me again, and I had to at least catch up!

So, we've been busy since February, but it's all the same old stuff. We're still searching for answers for Chuck's problems, but are now finally being pointed to the Boston hospitals, which relieves me a great deal. He's scheduled for an EMG in June and we'll see what that tells us.

Graham has grown by leaps and bounds. I haven't measured him lately, but he seems to have shot up an inch in the last two weeks. He's getting ready to transition to the kindergarten program at our child care center, and he is really excited. The best part for him is that they won't make him take a one-hour "nap". He is still a year away from public kindergarten, which is fine given his level of activity and (in) attention level. The only bummer is that his new "best friend" from our neighborhood will be going to public school this fall and I think there will be some drama associated with that!