Just Stuff

Things around here have been uneventful lately. I guess that's a good thing. So far both kids are doing great at school. Danielle seems much more comfortable there this year and is really enjoying being with her friends. Tyler's managed to behave himself for almost 3 weeks now! This week will be the first time he's gone 5 days in a row because the first 2 weeks were only 4 day weeks. He should be good and tired by Friday night.

The work he's brought home has been nearly perfect. He's only had one paper so far that wasn't 100% (he missed 1). Today, though, he was a little upset when I pulled out his work. He didn't want me to see one of his papers and was almost in tears about it. Of course, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was a note from his teacher about his behavior. Instead, he was upset because he got an S- on a handwriting assignment! (Handwriting grading scale: S, S-, U) He was genuinely upset about it. He brought home 10 other papers with perfect scores on them today, yet he was miserable about an S- (which "is like an F" he said). Tonight when I put him to bed, he wanted me to stay awhile so we could talk. He eventually brought our conversation back around to his paper. He was afraid because he got an S- he might have to repeat 1st grade. His handwriting is S- quality because 1.) He works quickly, sometimes too quickly 2.) He still doesn't make all his strokes the right way (like starting at the bottom rather than the top) or in the right order (like making the loop before the stem) and 3.) He's a boy. We talked about how he could improve his score the next time, and he agreed he really didn't try his hardest. I assured him he would have to do a lot worse before he'd have to repeat 1st grade. Honestly, if an S- in handwriting is as bad as his grades ever get, I will feel extremely fortunate!!

In other news, Danielle and I have been hunting for monarch caterpillars. We haven't had any luck. We've gone out 2 days this week. Yesterday my brother joined us. We found some fuzzy black, orange and white caterpillars on some milkweed. We knew they weren't monarchs, but we thought we'd take them home & look them up. If they changed into something pretty, we'd keep them until they emerged. Turns out the cool looking caterpillars will become milkweed moths, which are rather ugly. (I think fuzzy caterpillars will be moths and the hairless ones will be butterflies.) We decided to let them go. Before Danielle released them, though, she wanted to "play" with them. I was folding laundry & making dinner and generally just not paying attention. They took the caterpillars upstairs and let them crawl around on the train table while they were playing. When she brought them back downstairs before dinner to release them, they were almost completely bald! All of their fuzz had either fallen out or had been accidentally "pulled" out while they were being handled. It was gross. The kids felt bad when they realized what they had done. Surprisingly they found 3 out of the 4 still alive in the corner of the yard today.

This is a picture I found on the web of the milkweed moth caterpillar.

This is the milkweed moth. (Not my picture, either.)

These were our balding caterpillars. (Tyler took some pictures while they were "playing".)