Last Day of Summer

Since I didn't start blogging until recently, I thought I'd go back and journal some stuff from this summer. Last Monday, I had a meeting to attend, and I was really bummed because is was the kids' last day of summer. We usually try to do something fun on that day. I mentioned this to a friend, and she organized a fun day for 4 families of kids. 2 moms -- Wendy and Jennifer -- took the 10 kids to the beach while the other 2 of us went to our meeting. We met them for lunch and an afternoon at the beach after our meeting. Our kids have no idea how lucky they are to live this close to the beach! Jennifer graciously invited all of us to the yacht club where they have both beach and sound access as well as dressing rooms, a screened porch for dining, a kitchen, grills, a wonderful place! Thank you so much Jennifer!

Frances, Ann Bennett, Anne Catherine, Griffith

This is the younger group playing on the sound side. They are all good swimmers, thankfully, because they were walking out the dock, jumping off and swimming to shore. It's not that far, but it's probably about the length of the pool. These 4 have played together since birth, just about. They were in a play group together as toddlers. AB, AC and G's brothers all played on the same baseball team for a while, so they have had a lot of memories together. It is fun watching them grow up!

Marshall, Dean, Ward, Mac, Bryant, Ward's friend whose name I've forgotten!

The big boys only let me take one picture. They were far too busy swimming, diving, going under the dock, boogie boarding, finding frightening places to jump and doing what boys do. Ward and his friend started 6th grade this week, Marshall 5th, Mac and Bryant 4th, and Dean 3rd. The beach is a great place to go with a group like this!

Frances and Ann Bennett

Frances and Ann Bennett are in the same class this year, and we are excited about it. There are not that many girls in their 1st grade class, and last year they were not together. They have a great teacher, so we are all looking forward to a happy 1st grade.

And, finally, after taking the above picture, I noticed AB's hair was COVERED in sand. I told her to go wash it off in the ocean. This is what the crazy girls did.

Thank you so much Jennifer and Wendy for letting our kids have a great last day of summer. It made me feel much better, and I know they had a blast. You are such good friends, and I'm lucky to have you.

Homework Again

Since Bryant started kindergarten, we have always had a rule that homework is done as soon as you get home. I struggled with this for a while because the kids had been sitting all day, and surely they need a break to run around for a while. However, in our house, if we wait, it is worse. With sports, choir, etc. and friends coming to play, there is always something to prevent timely completion of homework. And if we wait until after dinner, the drama would kill us all. My kids need sleep, and sleepy children and homework do not mix in our home! So, no one comes to our house until 3:30, and we do HW right after school. It works for us in elementary school.

Anyway, I remember when Bryant started back to 1st grade, his really important HW was to draw a picture of his family. He fell apart about this! Bryant learned in K that he didn't know how to draw, so he hated all things related to drawing. (That is not what they were trying to teach him in K, but my little perfectionist took it that way. He could not draw things accurately, and if you used unrealistic colors for people or left off things like ears, it ws pointed out. Realistic drawing is part of the curriculum here in NC.) Anyway, it took us about an hour to get this simple drawing done! He wailed about how Daddy was too big to fit on his paper. He couldn't draw a circle for the head. We used a quarter to get a perfectly round head, and we made Daddy a wee bit smaller than his 6'2" height. We got through it. Fortunately, he didn't have much more drawing to do for HW after that. I remember that incident as related to his loathing of drawing.

Well, it turns out that just maybe, 1st graders are tired the first week of school. Because, Ann Bennett fell apart this week over writing letters. She writes all the time, but she was having a fit about even starting HW. Then, she was impatient and didn't listen to my directions and did it wrong. So, we had to do it again. I got a new piece of paper and did not make her erase her work! Anyway, it took us forever to get through a simple task. The next day, I made sure she had a snack first, and we've been fine since.

So, the moral for the 3rd child I don't have and won't be having is that even though kids seem so big by the start of 1st grade, they are still LITTLE kids. They get tired when they start school and need some TLC that first week. And, most likely, they need something to get their blood sugar back up before starting HW. I don't know if HW right after school will be our rule in 2 years when Bryant goes to middle school --YIKES!, but for now it works. They get home so late in MS, that if he doesn't have a chance to play after school, he might not have the chance at all. I don't know, but I guess we'll figure it out then.

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school in NC! We had a great summer, but it was time to go back to school. Bryant had baseball just about every day in June and July, so we needed August before returning to school. But, we had a few weeks off, and the kids were fighting over just about everything. It was time to get back to school.

Bryant started 4th grade today. I can't believe he is that old! He has friends who started middle school today, and that terrifies me. He has Ms. Walters, and his class is big! He has 29 kids in the class. The state mandate is that there can be no more than 29 in a 4th grade class without the state granting special permission. I'm not sure what I hope happens, but if a change is going to happen, I hope they go ahead and make the change. I don't want to lose time reorganizing classes! Bryant seemed happy enough today. He always is slow to decide what he thinks about a class, so we'll see. He got glasses this summer, and he is supposed to wear them at school. He is not happy about that, but hopefully he'll get used to it. He has heard that Ms. Walters can be fun if you're behaving or mean if you're not. He was delighted with her behavior system. You earn money for everything from school work to behavior, and you can spend the money on things like computer time, eating lunch with a friend from another class, helping in another class, etc.

Ann Bennett started 1st grade today. She has Miss Preston, and we are all really happy about that! She was Bryant's 1st grade teacher, and she was fabulous. She has been his favorite teacher so far. She is very disciplined, and kids love her. She rewards good behavior in ways that encourages all kids to do their best. She is fun, fully devoted and works really hard! She has babysat for us once a week the past 3 summers, so Ann Bennett is so excited. I'm glad because Ann Bennett has very few kids from the neighborhood in the whole 1st grade at her school. Fortunately she has a few children she knows in her class, including Frances. She and Frances were in a summer play group for years -- starting as toddlers. It should be fun for them to be together.

Carey can't understand my need for pictures on the first day of school, but it is a tradition for me with my kids. We always take them outside our front door. (They always seem a little hazy from the humidity of late August as well, and they are never great because the kids are always anxious to get to school.) What about you? Do you have a picture taking tradition? I'm planning to torment my children with these pictures until they leave for college.

Welcome

Over 9 years ago, my friend Laura had her first child, and Bryant was about 6 months old. Being the smart gal that Laura is, she found a website for us to use to keep people updated on our kids. It was called growthspurts -- I think? Anyway, it was basically a baby book type site. It had a place to enter height/weight stats, developmental milestones and something like 10 pictures. I think there was even a place to give a short written update. I did it for a bit, but I also kept a calendar at home of this info. Thank goodness I had the written info because, bam, one day all of the info was gone! I tell you all this to say, that I think we were actually "blogging" back then. We just didn't call it that, and it disappeared on us!

Fast forward 9 years. Many of my friends with young children have blogs, and I enjoy reading them both near and far. Not as many friends with school age kids have blogs, but I decided I was going to try anyway. I am a horrible scrapbooker. Bryant's first 14 months of life are in a book, and Ann Bennett made it home from the hospital. I have tons of pictures, but I'm hoping this will help me keep track of some of the details of our life. Plus, I found with Mom's Caringbridge site, that I enjoy writing. Maybe this will encourage me to do a little more of that.

So, my first challenge in this world was what to name our blog. One friend's blog is Leger Life, and I thought I'd copy her idea (thanks Kelley). I started searching for an "s" word to go with Sasser. I didn't like saga all that much at first because to me it sounds very dramatic or "Days of Our Lives ish." We have enough drama in our lives, and I didn't want to encourage that! When I looked up saga, I found the following: a narrative of achievements and events in the history of a personage, family, etc. I think that fits for what this blog will probably be. I'd love to say I'm going to have bright, witty, interesting stories. But, it will probably be more of the story of our family. Hopefully it won't be zapped into internet land somewhere like last time!