Bruce let Finn play with his phone on the ride home last night, so Finn was asking Siri some questions. He told us he was going to ask her things he knew the answer to and see what she said. Here’s my favorite exchange.
Finn: What is a building?
Siri: Bruce, I don’t know what you mean by “collecibilties.”
Finn: [laughing] She called me Bruce!
Finn got to choose the restaurant for our graduation celebration last night. He was very excited that it was his choice and no one could say, “We can’t go there.” He’d originally wanted to go to Slaw Dogs (the local hotdog place) but I gently reminded him of the make-your-own sundae option at La Grande Orange and then he was adamant that that’s where we were going. (I have to admit a selfish reason for my trickery, of course. I’ve fallen in love with their brussels sprout salad.)
Anywho, we finally got our act together around 6:00 and headed to the restaurant. Finn made sure he brought his Cottage key with him.
He and Ezra gobbled up their dinners and finally got to the much-anticipated sundae portion of the evening. They are expert sundae makers.
With only a small delay from the resulting sugar high, Finn, who was incredibly tired from such a long and exciting day, fell asleep like a rock. And made sure to find his Cottage key first thing this morning.
Well, today was the day — our very last day at Cottage. We weathered the emotions pretty well; I didn’t break down until the very end.
First, there was the potluck. Finn and Bruce played rock, paper, scissors instead of eating.
A little later, everyone gathered around and the graduation ceremony began. First of the three amigos to get called up was Kai.
Then Charlie.
And finally Finn. He got his certificate and folder from Sahar.
And a hug.
And he got his key from Angie.
And the book Not a Box from Art.
He was very proud and happy.
After the commotion, I managed to get a picture with Finn and all of the teachers.
What a journey our wonderful little school has been.
After three years at Cottage, Finn graduates tomorrow and will head off to Kindergarten in the Fall. Teacher Sahar sent me this photo she took of the two of them yesterday, their last real day of school since tomorrow will be mostly filled with a potluck and graduation festivities.
It got me thinking about his first year in the Mulberry class and I dug up some old photos. These first three are his first day of school.
Here’s one more from later that year.
And one from his second year when he was in the Oak Tree class.
To say my emotions about his graduation are a mixed bag is an understatement.
Finn was home sick on Wednesday, missing a precious one of the four days he has left at Cottage. Part of the way he passed the time was iPad drawing. He drew a flower for Teacher Sahar. There were three iterations — every time I took a picture and got ready to send it to her, he said, “Wait, wait! I need to add something.”
First, it was fairly simple.
Then he realized there wasn’t any dirt. And how can a flower grow without any dirt?
Finally, he added his name. But he wanted to make sure that I told her, “The Finn words is the roots.”
Last class picture from Cottage and it’s a doozy!
Finn looks like he’s in full Class President mode (as Teacher Art calls him).
Today was Cottage’s annual trip to Lacy Park, so we packed up some snacks and Finn’s bike and headed to San Marino.
Finn, Charlie and Kai ran around like crazy people.
Later, Finn spent a little time in this tree.
The big event of the day is a “parade” around the big loop. First, all the vehicles needed to be decorated. Finn is a minimalist.
He enjoyed his two ribbons (once I assured him I’d be able to cut them of later) because they showed how fast he was going.
Other kids were much more interested in the decorations.
The parade itself turned into a very spread out ride around the loop as many times as Teacher Art could manage on his skateboard. They never stopped before the “official” beginning (the orange cone you can see them riding past) so this was the only shot I got.
Here’s Finn finishing the first loop and heading around a second time.
All in all a very successful “field trip.”
I almost forgot to post this — Finn drew me a picture to take with me on my weekend outing. He’s just starting to draw and he takes great care with his lines.
That’s me on the left and him (as Jedi master Kit Fisto) on the right, holding a lightsaber.
Finn wanted some dessert after dinner tonight but we didn’t have anything. So he started throwing out ideas: Z-Bar (no), frozen yogurt tube (no) … and finally “how about a tomato?” Well, I can’t really argue with that, especially from the boy who never met a carb he didn’t like. He usually likes to snack on cherry or grape tomatoes but I only had Roma tomatoes. That was fine with him.
Last week was Sick Finn Week. It started with a fever the previous Thursday night — nothing too high (around 102) but I never gave it much of a chance to get any higher on account of the whole febrile seizure incident a year ago. The fever stuck around over the weekend and by Monday he was still coughing and full of green goopiness. As a coincidence it was time for his annual checkup on Tuesday, so the doc prescribed some antibiotics to combat the rattling in his lungs and the yellow stuff in his ears.
But, without the fever his spirits were up. He enjoyed the hearing test and looked pretty cute doing it.
Other than the infection, he’s a normal growing boy: he gained almost 6 pounds bringing his current weight to 50.6 and he grew just shy of 3 inches bringing him to 43.25 inches. He got a TB test for Kindergarten, which didn’t bother him at all, and a finger prick for a blood test that caused him to melt into a pool of tears. He was so distraught he didn’t even want the sticker the nurse offered him.
He finally recovered some time in the middle of our trip to Target to get his medicine. We went on to spend the rest of the week where we’d spent the previous few days, with his sick friend Charlie.
Here they are at our Thursday lunch date. They look terribly sick, right?
And so it was back to school for them on Friday. All is right with our little world again.
It’s possible that I’ve worked my last shift at Cottage. But we’ll see. We are on the schedule for one more shift as snack parent (which Bruce says he’ll take), but we also have two Alternate shifts. Hopefully the odds will be ever in my favor.
Anyway, I decided to take a bunch of pictures during my shift on Monday.
This pack of kids (Finn, Charlie, Marietta and Ollie) had some meetings before they ran around for a while.
Holden’s little brother, Avery, got in on the Rainforest action.
Finn and Ollie built a structure inside. They were very proud.
Finn, Charlie and Kai dug this hole for about an hour.
Then it was music time. Teacher Art tried desperately to regain some control over the situation, which was apparently total chaos on Friday.
Finn kind of zoned out.
And I took this picture when I was parking my car across the street in front of Arlington Gardens. The poppies were striking!
I pulled this gem off of Cottage’s Flickr page. It’s Finn, Holden, Charlie and Kai stretching before going to the Big Yard last December. What a bunch of cuties.
Finn’s birthday party this year was a large (19 out of 21 classmates plus siblings) and successful affair with an Angry Birds / Ninjago theme. We had two Bruce-made slingshots and water balloons in the Angry Birds area.
And an arsenal of cardboard (also Bruce-made) Ninjago weapons for the dads … er kids to decorate.
We also had a nice spread of food, including Angry Bird, King Pig and Ninja food. (Yes, that is a plate full of bacon. And yes, it was gone by the end of the party.)
We also had an oobleck table, an Angry Birds Pig piñata, and of course, there were cupcakes. The kids ran around like crazy people. Some of the time the adults got to relax and visit. Here’s the birthday boy with his Ninjago sword.
And here’s a slideshow of the rest of the pictures.
My sweet baby Finn turns five today.
We had a morning celebration as is becoming our tradition. First, Ezra read the card he made.
Then they opened some presents.
And we had cake.
Happy Birthday, sweetheart!
… and I have a GIANT banana phone!
