Happy Father’s Day to all of our wonderful dads!
This week was full of exciting moments. I met with Carlos
and Arianna’s teachers for end-of-year conferences. Carlos’s teachers said that
he is ready for first grade, and his next English teacher is excited to have
him. Arianna’s teachers reported that her interpersonal skills improved during
the school year and then shared the surprising results of her Stanford 10
standardized exams: Arianna scored “Past High School” in Word Study Skills,
Language Expression, and Spelling. (She makes her Liberal Arts mama proud!) I
was especially glad to see that her reading comprehension shot up; it’s an area
that tends to challenge Aspies, which is why I’ve committed so much time to reading
and decoding stories with Arianna (ex: the whole
Harry Potter series).
On Tuesday, I attended a second interview at Saugus High
School. Later that afternoon, the department chair of “world languages” (read:
Spanish, French, and Chinese) offered me a fulltime job! It is in an excellent
and stable school district very close to where we used to live in Valencia. It
is also a job that allows me a lot of creative freedom and career longevity. I
spent five hours at the school on Wednesday going through materials with the
retiring French teacher, who happily taught at the school for some 30 years. She
has been super supportive and helpful, as has the department chair. I was
abruptly reminded of the “little Utah” effect in Santa Clarita Valley when I
learned that, of a department of seven teachers, I am the fifth Mormon and the
fourth to have attended BYU, LOL. I feel so grateful for this wonderful
opportunity—for a job that will further my interests and talents while still
allowing me family time. Thank you to the many people who fasted, prayed, and commiserated
with me throughout these tedious six months of job hunting.
On Thursday, I chaperoned Carlos’s kindergarten class to the
LILA-Los Feliz campus for a pirate-themed science fair. The teachers from the
various LILA campuses did a great job of collaborating, which allowed them to
turn each activity into an exciting, appealing adventure for the
kindergarteners.
The kids used magnets to search for buried treasure; weighed
different amounts of pirate treasure; constructed a lookout tower; purified
water; and built storm-worthy pirate ships. They learned a lot while having a
great time! After lunch, the kids had an hour to play together as the future
Class of 2024. What a great gathering!
Friday marked the end of our two-week-long elimination diet. We discovered that we all become highly irritable without dairy and yeast, but we did not see any difference in Arianna’s general health. As a result, I plan to campaign heavily against the diet in Arianna’s follow up appointment on Thursday.
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| that's right -- a zebra striped shirt and guitar |
We hosted Arianna’s 10th birthday party on Saturday.
The kids dressed as rock stars and sang along to Disney’s Sing It: Party Hits.
They also doped up on the Fanta soda and Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake; the combination made them uncontrollable by the end of the party, LOL. We were so pleased that Arianna's first “boum” (girl-boy preteen party) was such a success, and we are a bit dazed by the prospect of soon having a child in the double digits.
Our goal for Father's Day was recuperation. The ladies at church hosted the men to a brunch and the kids sang their traditional Father's Day tunes.
Later, at home, Kirk unwrapped a few gifts before enjoying a nap and ESPN. We are so blessed to have a loving daddy in our home!
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