Sunday, May 30, 2004

Catching up on the last days of the school year...

Wednesday was a party day.

Wednesday was the ECLC class party followed by a birthday party for one of Rebecca's classmates. The only problem being, we had no birthday gifts. It seems in my rubbermaid box o' gifts, I have items for all younger ages. Something to be remedied over time.
The class party began at 12:30 so we ran into a minor hurdle. Pick up the boys an hour early at noon so we could all go to Rebecca's class, or ask someone to take care of them after preschool until we could get there around 2:45. It sounded like more fun to bring them for crafts and pizza, so we had between 9 and 11:45 to go to SM to pay a bill, look for remaining necessities for our trip, and most importantly get gifts for the afternoon birthday girl and the 2 birthdays scheduled for Saturday. It was a tough morning and while that sounds ridiculous, you try shopping in a place overcrowded with Back to School shoppers where everything is arranged by brand rather than item. Don't like these shirts? There's another brand way over there. But if you're looking for socks, they are in a separate section, also segregated by brand. We walked the entire kids' floor in circles and asking didn't help as each SM girl is designated to her specific aisle and knows nothing about the next aisle over.
It was still fun though because at the bottom of it all we were shopping. And shopping, especially for the kids, is enjoyable.
Time flew by and before we knew it, the boys were in the car, and Jonathon was fast asleep. In Rebecca's class we layed Jonathon on the floor in order to help the kids with a craft that even Nicholas was allowed to be involved in. They decorated cereal box (painted gold or silver) picture frames which would hold class photos from International Week, and they put their own photos on fabric squares, decorated brightly. The class photos came home, the personal photos did not so I'm curious to see what they've done with them. Oh here's a thought... Ms. Cater is leaving ISM this year, I wonder if they parents are putting together a booklet for her of all her kids?
Jonathon woke in time to watch the class put on a play of the 3 Billy Goats Gruff. Every kid had a role, so it was 13 billy goats (+1 since Nicholas was in on the action too) with 2 trolls under the bridge and eventually there were billy goats "eating grass" and bleating all over. The trolls didn't eat anyone and everyone lived happy ever after.
Time to eat. On Monday and Tuesday the kids had learned about reading a recipe, writing a recipe and they had practiced building a pizza with paper parts. Earlier on Wednesday they had physically made their pizzas so when we went to the canteen all the pizzas were ready and kids sat in their groups of similar tastes. Rebecca had made a creation with Malcolm, one of her best friends in the class with pineapple and extra cheese. Thing was, all the pizzas were cold and none looked like they had been fully cooked.
The kids didn't care and we decided the brownies were definitely worth the wait.
Rebecca went with Karen to her party and we followed after some playground time for the boys. The birthday party was being held at Kids at Work at Glorietta mall. The kids love the big indoor playground. Adults cringe at just how grundgy and dark and icky it really is. That's not to say that I haven't done my fair share of climbing through tunnels, jumping in a ball pit and falling down slides. There was a party room but it was just too small for the 27 kids and accompanying adults. I couldn't believe there were going to be games. All the kids were situated around tables, the MC decided it was time for musical chairs. All the tables and chairs were pushed to the side and after watching 27 kids trying to set up chairs in a mass, Mom Michele jumped in and organized them into a circle. First round, the birthday girl and Nicholas were out. I wasn't given enough time to count and we were short 6 chairs. Not that they could have fit in the space available but that meant 6 kids were out in one turn. It went quickly down from there. Five chairs taken, then 4, then 3 and so on. Organized and significantly less painful. Katherine won, big surprise.
Then there was the Jurassic Jungle game. Don't ask me where the name came from, but the boys were lined up in one row and the girls in another and then they were told to do things like get in order of height or get in alphabetical order. I suppose it would have been fine if all the kids knew the alphabet or if there hadn't been twice as many boys as girls. The boys didn't stand a chance and they knew that it was unfair. All around not a good party game.
The shoe game was just as unfair since it too was boys against girls and a bunch of the boys couldn't find their shoes in the big pile much less put them on and tie them without help, before the girls were completely done.
The last one was the Give Me game. This one I insisted the girls sat out after they literally attacked me yanking on my cell phone case when the MC called for a phone. I'd already planned to give it to Nicholas to bring up but he missed his chance while I fought off the girls from tearing it off. With the girls out, Nicholas had a chance to win a prize and was satisfied with his pencil and sketch pad. It takes so little to make him happy, and it takes so little to make him sad too.
More food, more pizza. I had a chance to talk to a couple other moms from school but we were all very ready to go home and take a bath. Ian was at a food tasting for the 4th of July so we all got home about the same time and the kids crashed hard after such a long day.

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