This time of year is always a rough one for me. There is so much going on that I spend my time on auto pilot, often feeling completely overwhelmed with all my to do lists.
Both the 'babies' have their birthday parties for friends. I always worry over this. (Will anyone show up for my son? He does not have many friends, well only one actually, but he thinks everyone is his BEST friend.) His party was simple. Pay the pool. Show up with cake and drinks. Our local pool does everything else. They supply the plates, cups, balloons, decorations and they supervise the kids in the pool). Five kids showed up, and he had a wonderful time. I had baked cupcakes (in 80+ weather, sigh), decorated with cookie crumb mud and gummy worms. While they swam and yelled I hid in the party room with a book and a coffee, grateful for the break.
The only remarkable moment was when they were playing with one of his gifts (a very cool magnetics set with zillions of those metal marbles) and one of the boys knocked the pile of marbles so they flew across the floor in a dozen directions.
My son yells "OH! OH! MY BALLSS!!! CATCH MY BALLS!! GET THEM!!!" As he hopped and did his 'excited dance'.
Well, the group is all at that wonderful giggle stage of 11. They all stopped and snickered 'balls, hehehehehe'.
Now, Little Man has been trying to figure out that secret code of social interactions. To my surprise he NOTICED that they were all being 'strange'. He turns to look at one buddy and says "What? Why is that funny? You bumped the table and knocked them everywhere!" (He has his puzzled look on-a look that is easily misconstrued for angry.)
(Snciker, Giggle) "Sorry Little Man." the boy in question gasps. "What did I knock everywhere?" Grinning mischieviously.
"All of my balls!" Little Man repeats, to the delight of the little monsters, who all shriek hysterically with laughter. (That commercial is playing in my head, the one where the mom is feeding kids hotdogs and asks them if they want 'bread or buns' and they all giggle and snicker over the word 'buns'.)
Little Man looks at them all. He waits for them to calm down. "Why is it funny?" He asks again. They all start giggling again.
Now, I can see that my boy is getting cranky over this whole deal. I turn to one of the other boys and say "How about if I go use the washroom, and you explain to him why that word was funny?" His eyes go wide. "Seriously. Or do you want me to?" I asked. Poor kid turns purple and says "NO! uh, I will!!"
No clue what was said, but my boy was content with the exchange. 
The other party...My now 12 (sigh) daughter is very social but as a preteen she decided to have a 'cool' party. This of course meant that she had all sorts of plans that I had to fulfil. 
Her theme was 'So you think you're a teen?' I'm an avid photographer (not a pro) and she decided I should set up an area for 'glamour photos'. She also decided they would have dance contests, singing contests, wit battles etc.
In case this was not enough of a challenge, she also booked this for the last day of school. Which meant I had to bake at 6 am, to be able to run to town quick after dropping the kidlets off to school (forgot ink for the printer) and race back to the school for year end awards. School was dismissed at 1130, party was at noon. (sigh)
My husband escaped with Little Man (they both enjoyed the one on one time) and I considered escaping too, but before I got my shoes on the gaggle of preteen girls arrived.
In spite of myself I had a great time. They all hammed it up nicely for photos. I printed off each child a 'contact sheet' such as you get for your portfolio, and a selection of the best and silliest pics. The young ladies entered each contest with a decided lack of modesty and a great deal of enthusiasm.
I was enthralled with this group of girls (only 6 girls, felt like 20, lol). They are all incredibly different-both in looks and temperment. Yet they are a tight knit group. Fascinating, truly.
As for the awards, both kids are on the honour roll so I of course am as pleased as punch.
Delillah is excited for summer break, but Little Man is feeling lost. His routine is gone which always distresses him. Hopefully I can provide enough structure to keep him level. He is also distressed as his teacher next year is not the teacher his sister had this year. This is the first time in his experience where he does not 'inherit' his sisters teacher (they are a year apart).
At his IEP we decided to allow more typing and scribe help, which means I have to work on his hand writing myself. It is hard to decide what help is priority with Little Man. His reading is grade lvl this year (dyslexic) but his spelling and hand writing is grade 2 lvl. He cannot prove his intelligence if he has to write his answers. It takes him about 5 minutes to write a complete sentence. So.. Scribe it is. Thankfully, he is going into grade 6, which in our school means the students receive laptops to use for school work. We are going to work on typing skills over the summer. It will be his last year at our wonderful school, as our district is changing its grade splits. We are to have 'middle school' after this next year, which will be grade 7-10. Unfortunately middle school is actually in the same building as our high school. I am unsure if this will be a good move for Little Man and have considered moving him to our private school. The private school is church based, smaller (which would be great for one on one help) yet does not have access to some of the extra goodies one finds in public school. (no sport teams, no exposure to woodworking etc). I meet with the principals of both schools in september of this year, so I guess we will see.
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