May I?

May I brag about my child for a moment?

Let's talk about Bela. She finally finished 2nd grade. Monday was her last day. Yes, Monday the 24th. Longest school year ever.

Mae finished a few days earlier for some reason, so she was home with me on Monday as we watched the clock and counted down the start of our summer vacation. Because it can't really start without Bela, right?

1 minute before the dismissal bell rang, Mae and Gill and I set out for school to meet her. 1 minute after it rang we walked up to the playground. Bela came bounding towards us, hands full of papers.

She had three awards. She was so excited. She shoved them in my hands and hugged her teacher and her friends.

We had been planning a cheeseburger-fries-and-ice-cream-dinner at our favorite restaurant, to celebrate the end of their school year, but Bela did not want to eat.

"We had a goodbye picnic today, and I ate two hot dogs, a bag of chips, two juice boxes, two doughnuts, and lots of cookies." It makes my stomach turn just thinking about it.

So we scrapped dinner plans and decided to head to the beach.

Anyway, I wander off topic. I glanced down at the awards in my hands.

She is on the honor roll.

She won the award for Most Growth in Reading on MAP test (uh, not that test scores matter, right?) "Wow!" I said. "Remember when you started the year and felt so behind because you weren't reading that much yet? This is great!! You must feel so proud of yourself."

She beamed.

I read the last award. Not only did Bela grow her reading scores the most, she got the highest reading score in all of 2nd grade (ooooh, wow, except scores aren't important, right? And we shouldn't judge our children based on some state test score. Right. but.....)

Woo hoo! Thatta girl!

I'm so proud of her! She sure does love a good story.

We arrived at Foster Beach, bought a tub of fruit and some chicharrones with salsa valentina, and walked down to the filthy water just in time to get caught in the mother of all storms. A beach trip to remember.

But hey! Let's get this summer rolling!!!