Where kinder left us, kick off to the summer of fun 2014

We just finished our first week of summer. We went to the beach. We went to the art museum. We stayed home. We did things around the house. We decompressed.

Kindergarten had left our entire house exhausted. Especially it's victim. I sent them in the beginning of the year, a happy go lucky child, excited about school, and along about December, I stated to get complaints about going to school, by the second to the last say she was screaming," I can't go, not even one more day! ". Part of this, was probably my fault. She was in a lot of extra stuff this spring, but in my defense, the extra stuff is so much more fun than learning fractions, nouns and verbs and synonyms. Every night we were encouraged but not required to read an ar book, do I-station and dreambox, practice our spelling words, work on math facts, and do our homework. Things I didn't learn about in kindergarten and a workload I didn't have until high school. Now ask me if she can add? No, not really, but that didn't stop them. I don't really blame her teacher, I think it is just the culture of the school, which is well regarded in Houston. We are not zoned to it, but it is a school for gifted and talented kids, and i nought she would do better there than the Montessori magnet by out house. I think on the whole, she thrived there, she didn't really care about what they were learning. She could keep up just fine and she loved her teacher and her friends.

But by the end of the year her tantrums outnumbered her little sister's. I think h summed it up best when he said, "she has gone to twice as much school as we did at this age, but she is at the same maturity level we were." And it it crazy. They talk about the "race to nowhere" but clearly, they want us to go somewhere. And then there are all the parties and field day and teacher appreciation and recitals and then to top it offTallulah crashed into the coffee table and we had ER drama.

We were all just done.

So now we are doing our fun things. And a thing she complains about but is freakishly good at (swim team).

We will have more beach trips

We are looking forward to visiting our aunt in michigan.

And we are going to chill. I explained to her what camps are--which is what upper middlish people do to their kids in the summer, all in the name of enrichment. "No mama, I just want to be with you every day."

Yes, I am that lucky.

No bucket list to check off this year. We are just going to enjoy every day.