The Purging of Papers

The dust hasn't even cleared from the last day of school (in fact Britton is in his last few hours of school as I write this) but already we have had the "purging of the papers". I think it is a rule that children must bring home at least a tree's worth of papers every day at the end of a normal school day. As a bonus they bring home a forest of papers the last week of school. At our house we have a system to deal with the daily onslaught of papers. First of all about 99.5% of them are thrown away (or recycled) by the time the kids are done with reading homework. The kids know that if they want to keep something in particular they must put it in their designated paper spot in the cupboard or it will immediately be thrown away.


At the end of the school year we go through their pile and make a final decision on what items to keep and file away in a well marked folder in the filing cabinet in Dad's office and what items to throw away. Yesterday they came in with all of their end of year stuff and I felt like it was as good a time as any to go through everything and be done with it. I had to laugh at Bitton's "School Memory Book" but only because the day they took the pictures of each student for the cover was when Britton had his black eye.

There is nothing like remembering the 1st grade with a real shiner.

We went through Britton's stuff first and were able to reach a mutual decision on each item fairly quickly. Jenna is MUCH more sentimental. She was sorting papers and had 2 big piles that both looked like throw away piles to me. The only problem was that one of them was her keep pile. After a little negotiation we got it down to something I could live with.

Where, oh where, has my sentimental gene gone? I remember being somewhat sentimental growing up, but somewhere along the line it stopped. Yesterday when Jenna got on the kindergarten bus for the last time the other mothers were kind of getting all emotional and saying things like, "Oh, I can't believe it's their last day of kindergarten! It makes me so sad!" In my mind I'm thinking, "Really? Huh, hadn't really thought about it. Let me think about it for a second. . . .nope, not sad." I didn't say anything out loud, of course, but I love watching my kids grow up and it makes me excited, not sad, to see them moving on. Does that make me weird?

Our daily schedules will change a little now that the kids are out of school. For one thing we won't be getting moment by moment updates from Britton about what time it is. He is a VERY punctual kid and time means a lot to him. He likes to leave for the bus at 8:10 a.m. every morning-- not 8:11 and definitely not 8:12. 8:08 is right out. (Never mind that the bus doesn't even come until 8:25 a.m. and he doesn't really need to leave until about 8:20 a.m.) Britton gets a little stressed out if we are off schedule in any way. "Dad, it is 7:51 and we haven't even started breakfast yet!", "It's 8:09 we have to say family prayer right now! Jenna can you say family prayer and keep it short?" We always know EXACTLY what time it is at our house until Britton is off to school. I can't even count how many times Adam and I have said the following phrase during the school year in a calming voice, "Britton you have plenty of time, it's Ok." Being a punctually minded person myself I kind of like that time is so important to Britton. Jenna is the complete opposite. She isn't so concerned with time and if we are waiting for someone in the family there is a 98% chance we are waiting on Jenna. "I'll be right there (no sense of urgency in her voice)" I'll go upstairs moments later to find her occupied with some inconsequential task. Mostly I think it is funny, but when we are really in a hurry it is a little less endearing. If we are waiting on Korinne it is only because she has made a conscience decision to NOT cooperate. It's all part of that "marching to the beat of her own drum" thing she's got going on.

Britton could sleep in this summer, but he won't. He is always the first one up and when he is unsuccessful at getting Adam and me up (with a lot of quoting the EXACT time and saying 'get up') he tries to find other things to do to occupy himself. His latest thing? Practicing the piano. So, at all hours of the early morning we can hear him plugging away at the piano. I can't exactly tell him to stop even though it is making it impossible for me to sleep. It just wouldn't be a very good Mommy thing to do--"Please stop practicing the piano and developing your talents and becoming a better person so that I can be lazy." It just doesn't sound right. I really wish I was a morning person like Britton. On this one, I'm definitely with Jenna--we like to sleep in. Korinne is in the middle, just like usual. Sometimes she up with Britton, sometimes she is sleeping in with Jenna. Adam gets up at 6 a.m. 3 or 4 days a week to play basketball, but on the other days he will sleep in a little longer.

Ok, this post kind of turned into a novel. This morning as Britton was getting ready for his last day we put on the music from HSM 2 and had a dance in our kitchen. "What time is it? It's summer time! It's our vacation." Britton used all of his classic breakdancing moves. Good times.