Crush

Way back at the start of the school year, Leif met a girl.

She is a cute little blonde who wears great shoes, plays the cello and loves little kids. And she is a FOURTH grader!

It all started innocently enough. Leif was nervous to ride the bus, he never had before. I was nervous to have him ride the bus - because what if the bus dropped him at the wrong school... or left him on a street corner... or decided to drive to Texas or something? You just never know these days...

But the cute little blonde at the bus stop (with cute boots) promised me to help Leif out.

And for a few weeks she diligently rode the bus with him next to her.

And AB and I worried when we saw stars setting in Leif's eyes upon gazing at her.

"What if she wants to sit with her friends?" we started asking him.

"She doesn't want to," Leif assured us.

Gone was the crush on the girls his age... now he had his eyes set on an OLDER girl! And he would blush when her name would come up. And he would blush when he would see her at school holding the door. And he would hide from her when her class left the gym and his arrived...

Then just a few short days later Leif complained that she keeps trying to sit in other spots. And he was trying to come up with tricks to force her to sit with him. There started a war at the bus stop whereby she was trying to make him get on the bus first so that she could select her seat afterwards. And Leif tried to make her get on the bus so that he could sit next to her.

And even when she would take a seat with somebody else, Leif would squish in and make it three in the row!

AB and I tried to take the tactic of reasoning with Leif, "you know, she is older and has friends and maybe doesn't want a first grader hanging around all the time?" To which Leif would reply, "she does, she just pretends she doesn't."

Poor, poor oblivious little boy.

Then AB and I took the opposite tactic. Don't mention her at all and hopefully the heart throbbing would subside. I reluctantly followed this path. Reluctantly because to me it seemed akin to sticking my head in the sand.

Then last week the little miss sealed her own fate unknowingly.

"Leif," she said, "if you can answer a math problem that I make up, then you can sit with me for the rest of the year. BUT, if you get it wrong, then you can't sit with me the rest of the year. Ok?"

Leif agreed.

"What is 44 x 10?" she asked.

"That's easy!" replied Leif, "440!"

And so Leif has a spot saved for him on the bus for the remainder of the year.

The wonder that is... field trips!

Remember looking forward to field trips? Field trips, anywhere? Just the opportunity to escape school and spend time somewhere else.

My favorite ever field trip was to Fort Laramie when I was in 4th grade. It was the "big" field trip of grade school - the one that since we were in 2nd grade we heard about and looked forward to. For us it was a full day trip - we left at 7am, boarded a bus and rode it for two whole hours!

I remember nearly every detail of the place, the jail, the houses, the center courtyard, how children who stepped out of line were punished, the stories of "Indians" (because we called them Indians back then). Even as a kid I was always impressed by stories of another time and place. I loved stories of the west - still do - and I wanted to be Laura Ingalls Wilder. I remember that Dusty had money to buy a mouth harp and my mom balked because he would ruin his teeth with it and SHE of all people knew how much those braces cost!

We got back that evening at about 5pm. It was a day I will never forget and I would love at some point to go back... though I always worry that my impression of the place would be forever changed viewing it as an adult.

I had a few less than stellar field trips too.

Every year each grade at my school would do a trip to the planetarium (stellar) and a trip to the fish hatchery. One year Phillip fell into the fish hatchery trench.

Yep, into it. Funny, I think it was also 4th grade since I remember the same teacher packing us all up early (before we had eaten lunch) putting us back on the bus and bellowing the entire 30 minute trip back to the school.

One year I was in Girl Scouts and the parent leaders enjoyed organizing field trips. I remember them packing us in their cars - seat belts? Well they don't have seat belts in the back of hatch backs. I remember my back being squished against the back window of a Pinto hatch back while the parent driving smoked and screamed that if anyone touched and ruined her defroster lines on that back window we would be paying for the repair.

We went to the post office once.

Snore.

We went to the blood bank another time. This one gave me a stomachache literally and figuratively. We hadn't been told about the field trip, the leaders just packed us up and took us. My mom had no idea where I was and this gave me a stomachache. I was never to go anywhere without her knowing. She knew I had Girl Scouts, but none of us knew of the field trip to the blood bank and there weren't cell phones back then to make phone calls.

I remember seeing the stacks of bags of blood and feeling light headed. Then watching the blood sloshing back and forth coming out of the people's arms and I could barely get myself to the restroom.

When I got home I was waiting to be yelled at, but my mom simply said, "I was wondering why you were late, but I knew you were at Girl Scouts". I don't think my mom knew until then - which was about the same time I quit, how inappropriate the leaders probably were.

Leif had a field trip today. Definitely not his first.

The teachers gave the kids opportunities to earn pennies. Then when "everyone" got to 100 pennies, they got to go to McDonalds. McDonalds is a treat to my kids. We don't go often and tend to reserve McDonalds for traveling. The main reason is because I find the Play Area kind of... well just not exactly the place I want to hang out with my kids for more than one reason which I don't need to go into now!

Leif prided himself on being one of the first to hit 100. Actually he hit 126 before the teachers counted them up and told he and his close boy friends that they had to stop. I found it odd that it was a few of the girls who had a hard time hitting their 100 - and really came down to the wire with at least two not hitting the mark.

The McDonald's trip was today and all week Leif looked forward to it. I wish he had the interest and drive to get to school on time everyday. Every few minutes he asked if we were still on time? Yes, I told him. We will make it there by 9am. We normally aim for 8:30am and occasionally make that. I didn't tell him that it is rare that we don't get there by 9am, I just enjoyed the morning of him hurrying around and prompting his sister to hurry as well.

This morning he told me that he had ordered (pre-ordered) two brownies. I told him how I loved brownies and I knew that he did too.

He was quiet for a minute, then he looked at me and said, "I am going to bring home one brownie for you, okay?"

I reitterated to him how sweet that was, really, but that no, he earned his brownies and he should eat them there at McDonald's with his friends.

I have the sweetest boy ever!

Cupcakes flashback

Tonight as I was reading to Leif before bed I recalled back to elementary school. One of my favorite activities that was held a few times a year was "Cupcake Sale Day".

I should ask my mom more about it. But this was long before cupcakes were haute cuisine. Before shops opened carrying only cupcakes. This was kid stuff and so very much fun.

Everyone made and decorated cupcakes and brought their batch in. They were all decorated differently and the parents split the cupcakes out among many tables in the hallways. A cupcake cost a dime. And we saved styrofoam meat trays (washed, but still now I wonder about how wise that was) for us all to carry them home on covered with a big produce baggie that I worked so hard to keep from mucking up my frosting.

I usually bought six - exactly how many would fit on a styrofoam tray - the maximum we were allowed to buy. Though since my mom was a room mother every year for either my sister or I we always ended up with more cupcakes than that - the leftovers. Leftovers were the ones that were an obviously obscure flavor or weren't usually decorated nicely.

Because as elementary school aged kids, we were ALL about the decorations.

Ours were always so nicely decorated that I had to resist buying our own cupcakes. And then there were the boys that you watched when they walked in with their cupcakes (providing their cupcakes made it in one piece), which were theirs. Because some boys had cooties and you wouldn't dare want to buy one of their cupcakes.

Cupcake sale day was great. So the fundraiser only raised 60 cents per child at most - won't go too far in today's schools. But there wasn't any of the door to door sales stuff. I admit though, I am a sucker for the neighborhood kids selling stuff. I will buy anything that comes to my door because they are most often for a good cause - the kids are in sports or working towards something for their school.

So far this school year I have bought a case of water for to help support a soccer team, a bucket of chocolate chocolate chip cookie dough - that not only do I not need, but can't possibly taste as good as my own - to support a gymnastics team. And I am waiting for the annual gift wrap drives to make their way here. Oh and exactly how many car washes do I really need? This is an anomaly here... I have never lived in a place that had so many charity car washes. And I really hope my children aren't involved in any organization that does this because it really reeks of something unpleasant seeing the preteen girls on the sidewalks begging cars to follow them.

Anyways. Bake sales don't always bring in a lot of business. But our cupcake sales were truly fun... and yummy.