The Luckiest Girl...Part Two

It's amazing what a sweet, loving, and LUCKY little girl you are, Molly.  Daddy and I just shake our heads and laugh some days at your good fortune... like the time you won the digital camera at school.

Then there was today.  I picked you up and you crawled into the van with a basketball.

"Um, Molly -- what's that?"

"I won it today!"

(Of course you did.)  "How did you win it?"

"It was Career Day and we had an Army man talk to us.  He's a computertologist."
"A what?"

"You know, a computertologist.  And he handed us each a blue card with a different job on it and told us that all of those jobs are in the Army.  And then he said whoever had computertologist on their blue card would win the basketball... and it said computertologist on my card and I raised my hand and I won the basketball."

The 100th Day of School!

Molly,

You've experienced so many special days and milestones this year as a Kindergartner... but one that I did not realize was such a big, momentous, special day was the 100th Day of School.  (I kept asking people, "I didn't know the 100th Day was a thing?  When did it become a thing?)

Sidenote: the night we got the letter from your teacher about all the 100th Day festivities, I was at a bookstore and saw the book Fancy Nancy: The 100th Day of School.  Ok, if Fancy Nancy says it's a big deal, then it must be!

Your (read: Mommy's) assignment was three-fold:

     1) Bring in a collection of 100 things to display in the 100 museum
     2) Create a t-shirt to wear to the 100th Day celebration
     3) Bring in a canned good to help us collect and donate 100 cans of food to people in need

Number three was easy.  Number one we debated about -- Daddy wanted to send you to school with 100 baseballs.  (He said this while giggling.)  You finally decided on taking 100 seashells from our trip to Ft. Myers Beach.  So we counted them out, sorting them into groups of 10.  Conveniently, they all fit into a baseball cube for easy transportation and a fun little display.

Number two was the toughest.  You couldn't decide what you wanted on your shirt.  One-hundred elephants?  The number 100 written 100 times?  A drawing of your entire class and Mrs. C. and Dr. P (the principal) and Mrs. W. (the librarian) standing and waving in front of your school?  (Yes - this was your idea, which Mommy promptly nixed.)  Daddy wanted to put your face on a $100 bill and write "In Mrs. C. We Trust."  I thought that would be funny... but you didn't want that.  So, we finally settled on your name in a heart (Daddy's part) and sewing on 100 buttons (Mommy's part).

Sewing on the buttons seemed like a good idea at the time... meaning before I started sewing.  But I didn't want to hot glue them on and have all the buttons fall off during the day.  So I sewed every last button on.  Luckily, this was your reaction:

I learned that the 100th Day of School is a big deal.  It's a great big number - and you can now count and write to 100!  You're halfway through Kindergarten.  And for you, you're halfway to six.  You've learned and grown so much in your first 100 days... I can only imagine how much MORE you'll know at the end of the next 100.

Happy 100th Day, Peanut.  I love you... 100 times.

Love,

Mommy

Note Home from School...

Molly,

You brought a note home from school today -- it was from your teacher, Mrs. C.  It read:

"Mollyu was tested in reading to see how she has advanced.  She did well!  Passed level 3 with good comprehension and a nice flow to her reading.  Level 4 is where she will now be working in.  She also knows all her words for 1st grade and even more.  Molly is doing great.  I am proud of her!  She has been working hard."

Not only were you SO proud of doing well for your teacher today, you were even PROUDER to bring home this note to us, with Mrs. C. telling us how proud she is of you.

We are so thankful that you have such a caring teacher, who realizes the importance and power of a few kinds words home every so often.  Not only is Mrs. C. teaching you how to read, she's instilling in you a love of learning.

We're proud of you too!

Bursting with Pride

File this in the category of "Bragging Mommy Blogs"

Molly,

I had your first official parent/teacher conference earlier tonight with Mrs. C.  We've had conferences before with you day care and preschool teachers, but this one seemed really official.  Unfortunately, Daddy was out of town so he wasn't able to join me.

I had a feeling Mrs. C. would say mostly good things.  But I was overwhelmed at how special she thinks you are.  Here's a quick rundown of what she said:

- "Oh, Molly.  She's such a doll."

-  "Any teacher would be thrilled to have Molly in their class."

- "Molly is very popular."

-  "Molly is very mature - one of the most mature in the class.  In fact, when she told me her birthday, I didn't think it could be right!"

- "She's ver confident and a hard worker during independent time."

- "Molly is great at helping others and very compassionate to her classmates."

- "She follows classroom and school rules."

- "She's a good listener to both teachers and classmates."

Yes, we did talk about things you need to work on -- basically slowing down and taking time on your work.  But overall, you're a great student and classmate.  (Now, if only you'd always be so good at home for Daddy and me...)

Proud of you, Molly!

The Luckiest Girl...

Daddy and I dropped you off at school Friday morning, then headed out for breakfast before running some errands.  While at breakfast, my phone rings.  The caller ID lists "Molly's School - Office."

Oh... rats.

"Um, hello?"

"Hi, Molly's Mom.  This is Tammy at school.  I have good news."

And my heart starts beating again.

A couple weeks ago, Molly's school had a Walk-a-thon.  The students collected pledges and walked around the school four times, which equaled one mile.  I love this idea -- it gets students outside and exercising, 100 percent of the profits go to the school, and I don't have to sell overpriced wrapping paper, overpriced chocolates, overprices coupon books... well, you get the picture.  Every student who participated and collected more than $20 in pledges got a drawstring backpack.  Every student who collected more than $50 was entered into a drawing for a digital camera.  And the class that collected the most pledges in the school would win a pizza party.

"Yes, I'm calling to tell you that Molly won the Walk-a-thon drawing.  She won the digital camera."

Of course she did.  Of all the students in the school, our little Kindergartener wins the camera.

And not just any camera... this is a Nikon Cool Pix 10 megapixel camera.

Lucky little peanut.

So now we'll have lots more Molly photos to enjoy... now in high-quality resolution.  Here's one of the first photos you took today - a beautiful double rainbow in front of our house. 

Kindergarten is Kicking My... Bottom

Molly,

It's Day 12 of Kindergarten...

The weather has been so unseasonally beautiful here that you're playing outside twice a day... plus PE three times a week.

When I called you to dinner and you didn't answer, I figured you changed your dinner protest from whinning to silent.

Instead, I found you like this at 6:08 p.m...

Daddy and I tried to wake you up, to no avail. I carried you upstairs, but as soon as I laid you down, you woke up claiming to want dinner. (You always did that as a baby too -- you could go from a dead sleep to wide awake and hungry as soon as I would let go of you...)

We came back downstairs. You ate EVERYTHING on your plate, plus seconds. (Funny how an hour earlier you didn't like ANYTHING I was fixing for dinner. But I let that go...) As soon as you were done eating, we returned to your room, read a chapter of Charlie and The Great Glass Elevator, then tucked you in.

We haven't heard from you since.

Who knew that Kindergarten was such hard work???