Sandra and Leppie

Sandra had the great honor of being Student of the Week this week. I am feeling a little sorry for her, as it is her last day, and she just finally got to take in her assigned items.

She came home from school last Friday with a poster to make and a list of things to do to make the next week special. The poster was supposed to be taken back on Monday. I was gone all weekend, so the poster didn't get finished until last night. The biggest hang-up was getting a picture of her taken and printed to put on the poster. She was supposed to bring home the class stuffed leopard, Leppie, last Friday also, to spend the weekend with him, and take pictures of all the fun stuff they did together, then write about it in his special journal. She forgot to bring him home until Monday.

With it being the next to last full week the kids are in school before Christmas, I have spent any free time, working on Christmas shopping. So once the kids are home, I am trying to catch up on housework and getting the kids to do homework, along with several trips to various places with the kids. Mindy had a big project in school this week also (thanks Carol, for doing so much for her) that involved me making tons of cookies for her. So basically, Sandy's need were not very well met, and she didn't get to really take advantage of her special status at school. She didn't even manage to get to do any of her other homework this week. I decided the poster was enough for her. I think her teachers think I am a bad, uncaring mom, because I am not that involved in her school life. She also has had many missing homework assignments. She tends to come home and just dump her backpack out, so things get scattered and lost, before I have a chance to see them. I find them days later under the couch or in the shoe closet, and decide that they are no longer important.

Last night, being the last chance to get her student of the week project done, we finally manged to make it important, and staged a few pictures of her and Leppie. She took great pride in filling out his journal, and making sure that she had written more than any previous kid.

(Be sure to take note of the chocolate on her mouth and the mustard stains on her shirt, I didn't even notice until I was printing the pictures.)

Here is Kyle, doing his best to try to make the picture taking harder, and annoy his little sister.

The bad thing, is that right now, I am staring at a paper I found this week, outlining a heritage project she has due on Monday. I HATE school projects, especially ones that mean parents have to do lots of work, or go out their way to gather stuff for them. I would love to just blow this off, but then I will have lots of mommy guilt and worry that she will be feeling bad at school when she doesn't have anything to show. Why do we keep having to do these stupid projects about our family from over 200 years ago. I don't know about you, but I consider my family to be American. We have no traditions or favorite foods, that have been carried over from where our ancestors came from hundreds of years ago. Anything we do will just be faking it and teaching our kids to lie. Not only do we have to make a poster for this, but she has to take in some kind of food from this country. Does anyone know any kind of food England is known for. England has a reputation for having the worst cuisine. I know, I have had to do various forms of this project several times for the three kids that came before Sandra.

Now my guilt just increased as I remembered that today was her one chance for the whole year to take something in for sharing, and we forgot. I guess I've just been a bad mommy this week.

(I've decided to blame the teachers for not giving us notice ahead of time, so I could properly plan for this honor for her.)