Week in the Life // Friday Words & Photos

Today is Ava’s last day of second grade. Last night mike grabbed a few balloons and a card and I had already planned to make her favorite cinnamon rolls for breakfast. We wanted to make the day special for her. The remote learning plan was all homeroom today. They started the day with a class awards ceremony and then a beach-themed movie experience. Kim asked the parents to join the kids for the awards ceremony. Of course that meant Ben had to join in, which is always problematic. Every student received an award, from early bird, to best smile, etc. Ava was given the dreamer award. I wish I would have written down everything Kim said. The gist was her amazing imagination. Ms. Kim said that whether she was using it to write, or draw pictures, or dance, Ava is devoted to sharing the possibility in the world around us. That I do remember, verbatim. So proud of my sweet girl.

Next up , was their beach day zoom movie: Finding Dory. Kim dropped of treat packages for all the kids including popcorn and candy. The kids spread out beach towels and watched the movie together on zoom. I was shocked that ben joined her and was focused the entire time. They loved it. After the movie the kids said their goodbyes for the summer. Ava found out that one of her closest friends from class won’t be returning next year and she was devastated. We spent some time crying and being sad. We ended up talking about the amazing new friends she might meet next year, as well as all of her other great friends in class. Mike had taken ben out earlier to play in the yard and filled the little pool. Ava changed and headed out to join them. I did some cleaning, work, laundry, all the little things.

Earlier in the morning Mike finished his puzzle. It’s cute because he sent me a picture of the completed puzzle…like he was hinting he wanted it in the album. Another Mike quirk I want to remember: no matter how hard I try, I never load the dishwasher the “correct” way. Because I do most of the cooking, our deal has always been he will clean the kitchen. And he does. He is extremely picky about how to load the dishwasher. I’ve basically stopped trying. The kids were outside in the pool for most of the afternoon. They came back in and it was a flurry of getting them dry, taking care of wet clothes, finding warm dry clothes to put on. The hose water is ridiculously cold right now. So, while it’s in the 80s outside, they are freezing when they come back in.

Ava is all about Harry Potter. Like, all day, every day. She gets ben to play Hogwarts games with her and they run around with wands. She says she’s Hermione and Ben says he’s Harry Potter. She’s finished the series (on her own), and we are slowly making our way through the movies. Ava is only seven. She reads well above her level…but she is still a little kid emotionally. And she is scared of quite a bit. She actually started reading the series on her own last year when she was five, but she was having nightmares, so she stopped. Now, she’s fine. No bad dreams. But, the movies are a whole different story. I’m really worried that the images in the movie are above and beyond what she can conjure in her head. She watched the first movie and loved it. We recently watched the third movie and she was great. I chose to skip the second movie because I’m really worried about the basilisk. It’s pretty terrifying. But I promised her we would watch Goblet of Fire as a reward for how well she did at school and in an effort to try and make the last day of school as special as possible. So, I showed her images from online of Voldemort after he returns. These were just movie stills because I honestly thought he was the only scary part. She said he was fine, he just looked like a snake. So, this afternoon we watched the movie together and she LOVED it. I think she’s decided Goblet of Fire was her favorite of the books.

Our routine is typically takeout for dinner on Friday nights. For the longest time, it was pizza. But, Ava has become really picky about her pizza. We let her choose tonight and she picked Chinese food. Her current favorite is General Tso chicken. Even ben likes Chinese. His current favorite is chicken fried rice.

We finished the day with lots of playtime in the basement. American girl dolls for her, and cars for him. They were tired at bedtime after all the time in the sun and the pool. I was exhausted. This whole situation, the pandemic, is starting to wear on me mentally and physically.