Wrapped up

OK, let's see how quickly we can do this rundown...

Luke won the bronze medal at his karate competition. He overcame some initial nervousness and got more confident as he continued. He had to compete in one extra round as a tie-breaker, where he finally won out for third place. Is he awesome, or what?

Luke also had a great, fantastic, roaringly good final report card for 2nd grade. I am a little sad that this year is over because I loved his teachers so much and I think the feeling was mutual with Luke. (I emailed his teacher about his karate medal as soon as it happened, and then I had second thoughts because I realized I might be over-sharing, but she assured me that she was just as delighted to hear it as anyone else and she wants to stay in the loop.) Anyway, among the comments on his report card, I was tickled to see that the teachers were impressed with his growing confidence, especially "when he told the class about going to the restaurant and interviewing the chef."

As a special treat, Luke and I had a "date night" on Wednesday and I took him up to Burbank to see a special screening of "Brave" at the Disney studios. Usually at these screening events they're in a special room where there are no food or drinks allowed, but when you come out there's a nice little buffet or something. By the time the movie got out at 8:45 pm we were both starving and thirsty, so we rushed out of the theater to find...no food, no drink, nothing. (Cue sad trombone.) So we headed back down the freeway back home and stayed up extra-late, teenage-style, eating pizza until (gasp!) 10pm.

Luke asked me the other day, "Mom, did you know (our babysitter) Rose  has stayed up all night before?" and I said, "Yeah, that's the kind of thing you do every now and then in college." And he answered, "No - I was thinking about trying to start doing that this summer!"

Zach graduated from preschool. I think it was one of those moments where I was supposed to be wiping away tears or something, but all I could think was, "I am SO happy that he's finally finished with preschool." If I were more proficient with my new camera I would have a picture of him accepting his diploma. Instead I have a blurry picture of him walking away while holding the diploma. Here's one that's better anyway (thanks, Suzi).

In celebration of his graduation, Zach has taken up a new hobby. I don't have much more to say about that, except that I'm not really freaked out TOO much. He's not exactly a delicate flower, and he's pretty close to the ground, so that's as good a time as any to learn. Dave reports that after they bought the skateboard, Zach insisted on carrying it out of the store, held tight against his chest. And as they left, a teenage kid heading in to the skate shop sort of did a double-take at Zach and gave him a look like, "Dude, that's how I was when I started too."

We also have a new fish. At the second-grade mall (second-graders come up with an idea for a store and then everyone comes and shops at the stores with play money), one of the stands was a game to win goldfish. Long story short - it was a game that was set up to be extremely improbable to win, and the line was impossibly long, but Zach kept insisting that he wanted a fish. So we got to the front of the line and he threw four balls that missed the target, and the fifth and last ball made a bulls-eye, to the delight of the crowd. So Zach won a fish, named it Diet Coke, and we now have a sprightly little addition to our household.

The last thing is not really important but I thought I'd mention it just as a curiosity. The other day Zach was having a hard day and he was mad at everyone, and pretty much everyone was mad at him too. But somehow he managed to collect himself and get organized over at his art desk. He carefully drew three separate pictures of a person pooping on the potty. Then he methodically went up to each one of us and taped a picture to each of our backs. Somehow, once he did that, he was satisfied and got himself back into a good mood. Of course, Luke was not happy. Dave was...befuddled. But I just thought it was kind of cool and I asked him if I was allowed to wear the picture everywhere I went. I don't think that's the reaction he was hoping for, but nevertheless I saved the pictures. Because you never know when you might need to tape a person-pooping-on-the-toilet picture to someone else's back.