Alex's and Eric's Graduations

I feel like I'm either getting ready to go to swim practice, at swim practice, or coming back from swim practice. Yesterday I dropped Eric off at a friend's house so they could take him to swim practice at our neighborhood pool while I took Natalie to her club swim practice. Alicia was good enough to allow him to shower off at her house also. Her daughter Sofia is also six years old and she and Eric are good buddies. Alicia gave them a choice of who would get to take a shower first. Eric, who bathed with Natalie up until about last year, of course asked if they could take a shower together. Although it doesn't really matter at their age, it was best to not invite questions later (about why they could shower together when they're six but not when they're ten or at whatever age), so she told them "no". Wise choice but still, I could picture Eric asking and thought it was a cute thing to say.

Eric chose to sleep in my room last night. Amongst his many stuffed animals, he chose his big triceratops that he got from the Children's Museum when he had his birthday party there, and he also chose his little (beanie baby-type) triceratops. He seemed to sleep pretty soundly, but he and Natalie were both awake by 7am, despite getting to bed late at 9pm. We were up and out of the house by 8am to go to Natalie's 8:30 swim practice. We went to the grocery store on the way home. Natalie wore her swim parka inside. We got some healthy things like strawberries and blueberries, and something to eat for lunch today and for dinner tomorrow. I indulged them a bit with the snacks. I was about to say "no" to Fruit Rollups but decided it was okay. I told Eric to go get one and he said, "It's already in there." Yes, Eric likes to just put whatever he wants into the grocery cart.

Speaking of someone who likes to snack, Alex loves to snack, but he has been so good about eating the right things since he was in track this past year. Of course that change wasn't due to him actually paying attention to Patrick and me telling him not to snack so much. That change was due to his track coach telling him that he would do better in track if he made more healthy food choices. He still snacks, but he has actually used some restraint and has even chosen to eat fruits and vegetables. He is currently touring Washington, D.C. with a group from his middle school. I exchanged some short texts with him last night. He has been quite busy but seems to be having fun. They have a lot of ground to cover as they are going to New York City as well--all in four days.

He made me promise not to bring my big camera to his awards ceremony last week. As a result, all I have are bad, blurry photos like this one. I'm still happy with this because at least he's looking in my general direction and this is more than I got last year. He even gave Patrick and me a hug at the end of the ceremony. Like Natalie, he also got certificates for the President's Award, All "A" Honor Roll, and Perfect Attendance. There was definitely a time this past year when we weren't sure he would make all "A's" so kudos to him for getting his work done.

After the awards, they had a short little film with pictures of everyone in the eighth grade. Luckily, they didn't have everyone in the eighth grade walk across the stage or the ceremony would have taken forever. Only the kids that got awards got to walk across the stage. For this reason I can't really call this a "graduation", but the principal did address the eighth graders specifically with words meant to inspire them to greatness in high school and beyond. We were out of there in about 45 minutes.

Eric's ceremony was even more low key. They don't have letter grades in kindergarten, so there was no certificate for getting all "A's". My sister Melissa arrived with her daughter Emily just as we were leaving for the school, so we were a very large group--all for Eric. We were surprised that we were the only family members there. None of the other families were there. That's unusual for kindergarten, but maybe they thought they weren't supposed to come. In any case, we made sure to clap for all of the other kids too. Eric was super excited to see all of us there.

It was a simple ceremony, not at all like the other kids had when they "graduated kindergarten". Eric's teacher merely called each student by name, gave them a certificate of completion, and gave them each a hug. She showed us this little headband with a graduation cap on top and told us that each child could pose individually with the headband for pictures if they wanted to. She also joked about how she could only afford one on a teacher's salary.

I asked Mrs. S for a picture of her standing next to Eric because I figured that one of these days, he would be taller than her. She laughed and posed for me. Unlike Natalie who always wants to ride the bus, Eric elected to go home with us instead of going on the bus. We still had lots of activities left for us that day. I'll post about Anthony's high school graduation ceremony tomorrow.

For today, instead of another swim practice to go to tonight, we have our second neighborhood swim meet of the season tonight. I'll have to post about that also whenever I can get to it.