Slap!

Mason's favorite female friend for more than a year has been Kali. He told me last year he was going to marry her. She told her mom the same plan.

A few months ago an "incident report" was waiting for us as we picked him up. It said he has been slapped and the teacher said she couldn't tell us who it was. Promptly, Mason came and said "Kali slapped me!!" pointing at her. It goes something like... she wanted to play with him, he didn't, and she slapped him. Oh my.

Ever since I haven't heard her name mentioned. Since his birthday party is coming up, I asked who he wanted to invite. He gave me a list and she wasn't on it. When asked, he said, "nope, she slapped me, remember?". I guess he still does. Good to see that he won't stay in an abusive relationship, but hopefully as he grows up, he can give people a second chance.

From the mouth of babes

Audrey's favorite saying is no longer "no way Jose" and is now "hmm, I don't think so". Either way, she is still very strong willed and getting a yes these days is rare.

One thing Audrey and I do have in common is her fear of clowns. She has a book that has the picture of a small clown on one of the pages. When we read that book, she always pauses and says "I don't like clowns, they are scary"

Mason is very preoccupied with mortality in the past few months. He would tell us he doesn't want us to die, he doesn't want to die, said he didn't want to go back to Hawaii because of the volcanoes with hot lava, and just tonight that he said he doesn't want to hike to the top of the mountain because of the tornadoes. What?? I don't know where this is coming from.
Me: Mason, there are not many tornadoes in Colorado near the mountains. The air is too thin here (true).
Mason: Are there tornadoes in Atlanta? (since we going there tomorrow).
Me: No (not true), but we have plenty of warning when a tornado is coming (somewhat true).
Mason: We need to find a bathroom or basement to hide in.

A couple of months ago Mason asked me if Sasha was OK.
Me: Yes, she is going to be OK. She need a little surgery to get a tooth extracted.
Mason: I don't want Sasha to die!
Me: She is not going to die honey, not today. But she is getting older and she will die one day.
Mason looking sad for 5 seconds, then says: If Sasha dies, can we get another dog??

Mason sitting in bed picking his nose.
Me: Stop picking that nose. I made that nose, let's not pick it.
Mason: No Mommy, God made me.
I had no rebuttal, pick away my son.

From the mouth these babes

Pre-K graduation

I didn't even know that there was such a thing, but I guess every year they have a graduation for the Pre-K kids going to Kindergarten.  It was a very cute ceremony.

 

Mason and his best friend for the past 3 years, Jackson.

STEM

Mason is starting Kindergarten this August.  We are lucky to have a number of school options in our area.  Since last Fall, we started looking at our options, visiting schools, reviewing the applications and their enrollment processes.  We had 2 gifted and talented schools on our list, STEM and our default neighborhood school.  After visiting the STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) K-8 school Bill and I both thought that would be a great school for Mason.  They had been open for only 2 years and doing very well.  They followed the standard curriculum, but thought through science, techonology, experimentation and problem-based learning.  Bill turned to me during the tour and said "I want to go to school here".  The teachers and staff were passionate, and it has attracted great educators to join.  STEM is a Options school, everyone is selected through a lottery system and the waiting list last year included 450 families and about 1/3 for Kindergarten.  This year, due to how popular STEM has been, Adams County was opening a sister school called STEM Launch just a few miles away, giving us a slightly better chance.

The two gifted schools (Stargate and Hulstrom) were excellent as well.  Hulstrom has a Mandarin program that was attractive to us.  Mason qualified to both schools through their interviews and tests.  However, both of them reminded me of the schools I attended.  Not to stereotype, but even through the tours we could see the overachieving kids, helicopter and tiger parents, and the bury-yourself in books approach.  I attended Colegion Bandeirantes in Sao Paulo from elementary through when I left for the US.  It was an intense competition to pass and rank higher than your peers (they would send report cards with an open rank by subject every quarter), great education, but left behind everything else (sports, social intelligence and fun).  Although I have great friends (all doctors, dentists, lawyers, engineers) from those years and I am grateful for the strong academic foundation it has given me, it didn't give me a passion for learning.  I studied because it was expected, to pass and move on to the next year, I got good grades but hardly remember much of what I learned.  I don't know if I would choose that same path for my kids given other choices.  Bill attended Westminster Schools in Atlanta, also a great school.  If we had a similar option near by with reasonable tuition, we may even consider it. 

We also visted our neighborhood school (Cottoncreek Elementary).  It is a great school even thought their grades may not be as high as the other choices on our list, as a public neighborhood school they are not cherry picking just the brightest kids.  We spoke to a parent who chose Cottoncreek over Stargate for the same reasons we were turned off by Stargate.  We talked to the principal for a long while and really felt a connection with him, his school and passion of what he was doing.  We left the visit feeling good that if Mason didn't get into the other lottery schools, he would have been just fine attending Cottoncreek.

Still our first choice was STEM, and we felt crushed when we didn't get selected through the first round of lottery in March.  We were wait listed everywhere but Cottoncreek.  But luckly two weeks ago STEM Launch got an open spot and Mason was next on the list!  Because it is a new school, their full day Kindergarten is free.  They are adopting a uniform, which we are not against if the shirts could be a little big brighter and more attractive.  His first day of school will be on August 21st.  He will be leaving Gateway Academy and friends he has known since he was 1.5 who are all going to various different schools.  I am sure it will be sad for him, but he is also very excited to go Kindergarten.

Gymnastics

We started Audrey in gymnastics a few weeks ago. It is on Saturday mornings at the same time as Mason's Tae Kwon Do at a serious gymnastics center 5 minutes from our house. The little kids class is in a smaller room upstairs, but they also get to go to the big space downstairs every other class.

She is slowly warming up to joining in the activities. We will share better pictures and videos soon.

Away from home

I'm on another business trip, my 6th this year and 1st out of 3 this month. I really don't enjoy traveling for work as much as in my younger years. I don't like flying, airports, very early or late flights (as I try not to stay away more then necessary), or being away from home. But I guess that is the price I pay for working from home the rest of the time. I'm glad that Denver is very central, flights are normally too long, and there are usually nonstop flights everywhere.

It is specially hard to leave when the kids are sick. Audrey had a little fever two days ago. Today daycare called because she had a low grade fever and was complaining of ear pain. Bill took her to urgent care and confirmed another ear infection. Poor thing! Poor Bill. We are very grateful that Gong Gong and Bu Bu live close by and can help.