Goodbye Kindergarten...

I added these photos from graduation this morning...it was really fun! Each kid had to come up an say their name and one of their favorite things about school - in Spanish. Will said that he likes writing, which is cool...the beautiful ladies in the first picture are his Spanish teachers, they are incredible!

I should be in bed asleep...Mark and I were both up most of the night last night with Lora coughing and tonight, thanks to children's Claritin, she is sleeping peacefully...but I'm up. I've been reading through old blog posts and realizing how long its been since I posted anything... I just read through my post on Will's first day in Kindergarten...it was interesting to read it tonight, the night before his Kindergarten graduation. Mark was talking to me tonight about how grown up 1st grade sounds - it sounds so much older than Kindergarten for some reason...I'm so happy and proud about the year that Will has had...he has learned so much, made so many friends, grown so in both height and maturity...he really is a great kid. He's funny and smart and has a tender heart - most of the time... His school is one of the pilot schools for the Seeds of Compassion curriculum which is the program that the Dali Lama and Desmond Tutu helped to write - so they have been talking a lot about Empathy and Compassion at school. Will loves to give lectures to us about many things - we've heard everything you would ever want to hear about foxes, Green Bags, Life Alert Systems, Earth Day and now Empathy. So a while back, he was going on and on to Mark about how we need to be empathetic and compassionate to others (if you know Will, he was doing his usual pacing back and forth while talking)...so the conversation went like this... Will: We need to be empathetic to others, we need to have compassion (or something like that, pacing back and forth)... Mark: Well Will, you're right. In fact, we are followers of Christ and so we try to do the things that Christ told us to do. Jesus said that if you have two coats and you go outside and see someone who doesn't have a coat and they're cold..Do you know what you're supposed to do that would be compassionate? Lora: (Who pipes up with the Sunday School answer) I think you give them one of your coats... Will: I think you say to them "You should go inside, its cold out here!" So he hasn't learned it all yet...but it was funny because Mark and my 10th anniversary was a couple of weeks ago and we have this tradition of watching our wedding video together and this year we decided to make the kids watch it with us...Lora lasted about 5 minutes and was bored but Will was riveted to the screen. We got to the part where Mark and I are on the platform holding hands, staring at each other while a song is being sung in the background...I look over at Will and he is literally fighting back tears so I say, "Honey are you okay?" to which he responds "Don't look at me! Don't look at me!" and then, "Its just so beautiful, I think I'm crying." It was so sweet and one of those moments I don't want to forget - believe me there are many moments of fighting and yelling, that cause me to need to recall this memory... But, he is growing up and he is becoming a great person who I enjoy hanging out with. He's reading (he read "Are you my Mother?" all by himself the other night)...he's doing math...he's watching shows that aren't cartoons (we watched "The Naked Brothers Band" together the other night and he said "Mommy, we have this in common, we both like this show")...he can quote whole commercials that he has seen...he has friends that he cares about...he loves his sister and doesn't yell at her when she stands in front of the TV so she can see it...he's in that great space where he's getting more self sufficient but still wants to cuddle, still likes kisses (sometimes) and still tells me he loves me... So tomorrow, we say "Goodbye" to Kindergarten and "Hello" to 1st grade...after a long summer of me trying to think of ways to occupy two busy childrent....but I think he's ready for it...