Summer

Olaf the snowman burst onto the scene a few years ago, and thoroughly reinforced that summer is something to be cherished. After the last few days of umpiring U5 and U6 baseball outdoors, in what felt like a sick and twisted experiment of a cross between a humidifier and an oven, like Olaf, I was hoping for my own personal snow cloud. I think that we should remember someone far more important at the beginning of summer than Olaf, a New Yorker by the name of Willis Haviland Carrier. Willis is credited with the invention of modern air conditioning. My wife credits Willis for extending her patience (and our daughter's time outside of the timeout chair) during summer. We are thinking about putting his photo on our wall if it gets any warmer this season.

As school closed out, I received my daughter's report cards and some interesting updates from their final days of school.

My youngest celebrated a 3K graduation. I was traveling and unable to attend, and I lean towards conscientious objector to non major graduations anyways. As I watched a video my wife took at the ceremony, it began with the 14 children carrying American flags in a processional, to "God Bless America" playing in the background. My little goofball was last, smiling and waving for the camera. I have begun apologizing in advance to any of her future teachers, as I expect deuce to be a bit more difficult to tame in the future. For those of you who may have read my earlier posts, you may recall her night time meltdown nickname is, "good times" and her older sister's is "hot mess".

At the end of her last week of 1st grade, my daughter attempted to plan a play. She intended it to be a surprise for her teacher, but in her words she was, "found out on account the boys told her teacher about their practice at recess" The play was titled, "The bandits who stole everything" and similar to a work of Shakespeare in only one way, I was told after the performance by her teacher that it was far too LOOOONG. When I asked my daughter about the performance, I was told it didn't go great "on account the boys never wanted to practice they just wanted to play kickball" and that instead of reading their lines, "the boys got on stage and just started high fiving" When I asked what she learned from the experience, "boys like kickball and high fives" More true words have never been spoken. More of a concern, why is my daughter using the words, on account? Was there a rerun of leave it to beaver on disney tv I left on or something?

The report cards were interesting.

Significant improvement was apparent in my oldest's development. She developed a love for reading, and progressed on math, science, and learning to be a better human. Like playing cornhole or "bags" for those outside of Wisconsin, the top score is a 3 on the report card in any category. My daughter had a 2 in "reasons with shapes and their characteristics" the only 2 she received on her report card. My eyes were immediately drawn to this abbherration. I realize that discussing Rorschach results with a triangle is an important life skill, so I immediately withheld praise and reached out to her teacher for "guidance". I was emailed back off the ledge with a smile, and we will be working hard with my daughter on "reasons with shapes and characteristics" this summer once I find out what it really means.

My daughters had other plans as they prepared for summer, to quote Yogi Berra, "If you don't know where you are going, you will end up someplace else"

Some examples of the planning my oldest daughter did before summer:

I have to admit, reading the list was quite humbling. I realized that I made quite a few of her top 10 to do's. I also have to admit, I'm hooked on phonics, because without them, I'd have no idea whether she planned to vacate me or vacation with me.

So as you prepare for your summer and we prepare for ours of Celedrating Father's Day, Lemonnadstanding, and Vcatshoning, I leave you with a different Yogi's Bear's wisdom for the season:

"Another golden rule, stay cool"

bvd