Mid-Week Update

Veterans Day edition.

1. Kitchen update -- we got our two cabinets installed yesterday, and they look good although there is some touch-up that needs to be done -- sanding,painting,caulking, the oven needs to be leveled, and there's some weirdness going on with the strip of granite behind the stove. The contractor paid a visit today to make notes on all these issues. We picked out a new back splash but it needed to be ordered so installation is scheduled for next Wednesday and Thursday.

2. Ben attended his second junior cotillion class last night; it was actually the third class but he had a cross country meet last month so missed class last month. Boys were required to wear a jacket and tie to this class, so Ben wore khakis and a blue blazer with a dress shirt and tie and looked SO GROWN UP and of course would not let me take his picture. His report of the evening was that he learned the fox trot and ate Samoas. Sounds like a good trade-off. Apparently next month's class is a mother/son, father/daughter dance lesson. So I get payback for signing Ben up for this :)

3. I had Caroline's fall parent-teacher conference today. Very impressed with her teacher this year, as I was with last year's teacher! Her teacher had a whole binder devoted to Caroline, divided into sections, with samples of her work and the progression of each type of activity from the beginning of the year to now. She said Caroline is doing great, and she is particularly impressed with her progress because she is the youngest in the class. She can recognize almost all her letters and make the correct sound for 21 out of 26 of them, can write her name pretty legibly now, and is doing some pre-reading such as sounding out words and some math activities such as grouping numbers into different amounts (6+2 =8, 5+3 =8) and she can count to 60 with minor assistance (she always seems to skip 15). Her teacher said she feels strongly that Caroline should be in pre-K next year, even though technically she ought to be in a 3 year old class right now she is doing great in the four year old class and it would not make any sense for her to repeat it next year. So she will work with the administration to make sure that is what happens for next year. So, yay Caroline! My baby girl is getting so big!