Conquering Fears and a party of Olympic Proportion

All Hail, The Graduate!

So tonight was The Night. The Night of the Pre-K graduation concert. William has been practicing Skiddamarinkydink with "the sign language." Do you know the word skiddamarinkydink in sign language? It's a complicated state of affairs for us novice signers, but William- now he KNOWS this stuff. And he's been practicing. Along with 'Jesus Loves Us' and another Song about Nature and God's love. Well, all I can say is thank God for God's love! Our sweet William has stage fright. Not just a bit nervous, but FRIGHTENED. Dehabilitating fright. Apparently Will had a crying breakdown at this morning's concert practice... this afternoon's practice was better, but when I picked up William from school he told me that he didn't really want to do the concert thing tonight. When I asked, "Hmmm, really? how come Will?" He told me they were serving punch- and he doesn't like punch. So that's where we started this afternoon. My usual tactic in these sort of circumstances is that of bribery. But THIS time- I knew the fragile state of affairs. Bribes can backfire. I wanted him to know we loved him and were proud of him no matter what. He not only has practiced the songs but came up with a fabulous poster of how much he has learned in Pre-K and why he is a special kid. Too many reasons to count!!!

Sooooo I went with the angel in the pocket. We say the Angel of God prayer every night and all sincerely believe in our Guardian Angels. After a prayer this afternoon we put his Angel of God gold coin in his pocket and I hoped for the best. Thank goodness their class was third of 3 and he had that long to get himself in order. I told him if he was nervous to look for Tyler who would be singing along with him... or anywhere else around the room. The ceiling worked apparently, but the BEST was once he got his groove on. He IS a great singer and we actually heard him loud and clear. And when the line came... "Skiddamarinkydink-I-love-you" he pointed at Tyler and me.I melted- frazzled nerves and all. And then... AND THEN he says in the car to my Mom on the phone, "Grammy, I conquered my fear tonight."

We have celebrated other important events in the last week as well. Benjamin turned 8!

Ben wanted an Olympics party. So I did the only thing a Mom of a sports fanatic who is crazy about celebrating birthday parties can do... I called the public school system and signed up to use the Hart Track that Lewis and Clark Highschool uses for an hour on his birthday and he invited 9 friends to be a part of an Olympic track meet.

Benjamin planned the events. The 400m, 100m, javelin, long jump and 4 x 100m relay. Too much. Really. Ben picked a country for each kid and their number, flag and last name was proudly displayed on their race number.

The kids were awesome sports. All of them. Fun times. A "track cake" and lots of great pressies and brats and watermelon.

Now that's a great party.