Year one... done!!

Today was Liam’s last day of school. It really does feel like just yesterday we were walking him to school on his first day/everyone else’s second, with his homemade name tag pinned on and his too-small lunchbag. I don’t know where it all went.We’ve been giving next school year a lot of thought over the past few weeks. This year, Liam was a ‘B’ day student and we currently have a request in for him to switch to ‘A’ days next year. The driver behind this was the realization that the ‘A’ calendar lines up much better with our every-other-Friday-off routine. Having said that though, there are drawbacks. Number one, some of Liam’s best friends at Cindy’s have requested ̵ 6;B’ day status, meaning that he will not cross paths with them very often once the summer is over. Number two, he won’t have many friends from this year’s class in next year’s class. Back on the bright side, Mrs. Garrow will be an ‘A’ teacher next year, and we would love for him to have her again. Plus, most of the boys in his current class are senior kindergarteners who will be moving on next year anyway; switching him to ‘A’ days might put him in closer contact with more boys his own age.

As you can see, there are many reasons to both move him and to keep him where he is. I am really trying not to waffle on this decision and to simply let it play out from this point forward.To mark the end of the school year, we were invited to his classroom for a small pageant of sorts this week. I never did come up with a super-cool end-of-year treat, but Liam helped me put together some simple vanilla mini-cupcakes that went over well nonetheless……and then we went in and were treated to a ‘year in review’ show of sorts. The kids sang ‘Canada in My Pocket’ to recall their unit on the Olympics, ‘The Seed’ to summarize their study of plant life and ‘Five Green and Speckled Frogs’ to wrap their frog lessons. They counted by fives and tens. They showed us how they do the Macarena with the months of the year. Then the SK kids got their kindergarten diplomas and the J Ks got achievement certificates… and then it was snack time, and the day was over.(Liam gets all coy and shy whenever we come into the school. He has this face he makes for most of the song where it looks like he is sticking his tongue into his cheek to stop himself from smiling. I know that neither Chad or I are the most emotive people in the world, and so he comes by it naturally. But I hope that he one day learns that it is OK to smile!)Liam came home with his report card today and he’s officially moved on to SK next year. My mommy heart is proud and full to bursting. We will take him for ice cream to celebrate.