The raccoon family that lives in the hole in the sweetgum tree at the corner of our neighbor’s yard has had this year’s brood.
Every now and then mama comes out to check on what’s going on in the neighborhood.
Month: June 2018
VBS 1
Years and years ago, I spent a few weeks of summers in the north of Poland, in the lake district, working at a camp for young Poles looking to improve their language ability. After a year of teaching, spending several weeks teaching some more wasn't something I was looking forward to, but the money was decent, and I was there with friends, old and new.
The days started with lessons and ended with sports. I did a session on blues -- native Polish teachers of English found it interesting, but the kids, who were into techno, not so much. That's about all I remember of it, other than the routine of it. Up for breakfast, a couple of sessions, then off to sports after lunch.
Still, there was something pleasant about those mornings. Knowing that I wasn't teaching toward some test or other, knowing that fun was the operative word (even if I didn't provide it consistently for my young charges), I enjoyed working in a new place with new kids.
Today was the first day of Vacation Bible School. I agreed to serve as photographer for the camp, so instead of dropping the kids off and heading off to accomplish something or other, I went about snapping pictures.
Over 300 pictures, and only one I can post here...
Ice Cream Downtown
Party!
Graduation and fiftieth birthday.
The End, 2018
Graduation
As of tomorrow, L will officially be done with elementary school, but it was all over and done with today for all intents and purposes: tomorrow is a half-day, and today was graduation.
How in the world did six years go by so quickly? How did she jump from kindergarten -- that first Meet the Teacher evening when she was enthralled with the reading pit in the library -- to the end of her fifth-grade year when she looks more like a teenager than a kindergartener?
She's no longer dependent on us for every little thing. She no longer seeks reassurance for every little thing. She no longer plays with toys or watches cartoons, except when she's watching something the Boy has selected.
She has a sense of things that embarrass her when she once was, like most young children, virtually shameless. (And that sense of embarrassment is sometimes skewed in a distinctly teenage fashion -- things that would never embarrass an adult, like taking a change of clothes in a small bag. "They won't even notice," I insisted. "They notice everything," she insisted. I doubt it, but in that case, her perception is all that counted.)
It's the end of a long chapter in her life, the end of elementary school, the end of childhood in many ways.
More Lightroom
More playing in Lightroom.
Party
