The Choir Concert

The choir concert (3rd and 4th graders) was Wednesday night. Sam SERIOUSLY enjoyed putting on his concert duds. I didn’t want him to get dressed until the last minute, because, hello, cats and also, Sam, who has trouble NOT rolling around on the ground. But given a legitimate excuse for dress pants and patent leather shoes and a pressed, white, button-down shirt, and BOW TIE, he was suited up and ready to go forty minutes before we could leave the house.

Here’s the handsome man once we arrived at school. You can see he did a great job keeping himself neat and pressed.

Before the concert, even before warm ups, he had a great time just chilling with his buds.

And in doing some independent voice warm ups. This one is self-photographed too.

And here he is entering the library/stage for the performance.

We need a zoom lens. Lacking a proper zoom, here’s the wide view of the kids getting on the risers. This is better than the full choir because you can still see Sam.

The concert was about what you’d expect from a 3rd/4th grade performance. They sang Blue Suede Shoes, The Grand Old Flag, Amazing Spider Man, and Down By The Water. There may have been some other songs, but those are the ones I remember now. A couple of kids sang solos or played the piano. We’re hoping that next year Sam can play a song on the guitar for the concert.

It was a lot of fun just watching Sam perform. He was so focused and expressive. You could just see him loving being a part of the group and enjoying the music.

On the other hand, there were chairs for about 50 people. I think there was a crowd of about 100. So it was a bit over-crowded and warm.

Since the event took place in the library, Terri was a bit worried that all of her order and organization would be trashed by hordes of curious younger siblings and inquisitive parents, but when she went in the next morning she said it wasn’t too bad.

Football

I have a few pictures now. These are off the iTouch, not my camera, so take the quality for what it is.

Here are the kids before the game, consulting with their coach.

This is Sam showing off how ready he was for the game.

And here’s Niya mid-game. She’s so focused.

So there are the football pictures. I’ll try and get the ones from my camera uploaded this weekend. Choir pictures will follow shortly.

Football and Choir

This past Sunday the kids had their first football game as Cowboys. It was a very exciting game, especially regarding the awesome achievements of the Morgen duo.

And this time, our assessment of their awesomeness has objective validation. Their stupendous coaches kept notes and after the game sent us an almost play by play narration of each team members contribution. Here are excerpts from that regarding our cherubs.

“E connected with D on the PAT from our 4 Pass formation, giving our Cowboys a quick 8-0 lead. The defense proved up to the task as well, forcing a 3-and-0ut with two flags by Sam and one by L.”

“Back on offense, S started things with a nice run down the left sideline from our Cross 2 play. From the same formation, Niya got the ball on the next play and wowed everyone with her speed and elusiveness, running for a TD.”

“With the ball back, Niya started with a huge run from our Reverse play, taking the ball all the way to the 1 yard line before getting caught.”

The kids weren’t the only stars- there were some amazing plays by a few of the other kids and the Cowboys won the first game of the season with a final score of 34-20, and, as the coaches wrote, “showed excellent sportsmanship during the handshakes.”.

Terri and I took pictures, and hopefully I get some downloaded and posted soon.

In other news, Sam’s first choir concert takes place tonight at 7. We are looking forward, with much enthusiasm, to 45 minutes of 3rd and 4th graders gracing us with song. I’ll report back tomorrow on his rousing successes there.

Sam vs. Sam

So Sam woke up early on Sunday. He woke up with energy. A lot of energy. Which he expressed with a lot of noise. And bouncing. At 7 am. So Terri, who is the greatest ever, decided to take him to the Y early. Shefigured he could run around in the gym until it was time for open gymnastics. Her plan went well. They got to the Y. The gym was empty. Sam got out a basketball. And, as Sam does, he narrated the action going on in his head as he played.

Apparently, in Sam’s head, he was fielding two basketball teams. It was Sam’s team against invisible Sam’s team. There was much running, dribbling, shooting and even some odd self to self passing.

The only concerning part? Apparently, for quite a while, invisible Sam was winning.

In the end though, Sam was victorious.

He strutted on down to gymnastics and practiceddoor an hour.

He came home. He was still bouncy.

School pictures are in

It’s been a while. Sorry. The end of the semester is a bit crazy like that. It’s still crazy, but school pictures are in, and I thought I’d share. I’ll try to get back to posting after classes end next week. But there’s still grading and writing and meetings so I’m not making any promises.

And for those of you on Terri’s Facebook page, you’ve seen these. But this is the first time I’ve had digital access to them, so here they are now.

On to pleasanter topics, here’s Niya

and Sam

and that’s it for today.

Albuquerque Is a Turkey

Niya’s teacher taught her a song about a turkey. It is sung to the tune of Clementine. It’s just as awesome as it sounds. Niya wanted to memorize it, so she sang it over and over again.

The first verse goes like this:

Albuquerque is a turkey

And he’s feathered and he’s fine

And he wobbles and he goggles

And he’s absolutely mine

I know this partly because I checked the lyrics against the sheet her teacher helpfully sent home, but mostly because the entire time she was rehearsing the song she was sitting in my lap which necessarily put her mouth in close proximity to my ear.

The past couple weeks have been exceedingly busy with the grad students having comps on Saturday, it being advising for the undergrads, and student teaching applications being due for them both the result of which being that I’ve missed a lot of my usual evenings at home. This is why Niya wanted to be on my lap and why I didn’t feel like I could remove her from said lap.

So there you have it, one of the consequences of working mom guilt is allowing yourself to be serenaded by an endless loop of Albuquerque is a Turkey.

Tomorrow I’ll try to post the picture she drew to illustrate the song.

P.S. In case you want to share the ear worm, there is actually a version of this example of the lyricist’s art  on you tube.

Math Team and Smelly Markers

Yesterday was Niya’s second day of math team. Unfortunately it was also my second day of coaching math team. We can all take a moment to visualize the awesomeness that is me as a math coach.

Here is one of the problems Niya had to solve:

Julie has three boxes that hold marbles. The big box has 8 marbles more than the medium box does. The small box has half as many marbles as the medium box. The small box has 20 marbles. How many marbles are in the big box?

There were six problems in all. In a couple of weeks they’ll have a competition where they solve as many problems like that as they can in twenty minutes. The top scorers get to compete in other contents.

She thinks this is fun.

Sammy, on the other hand, is currently entranced with smelly markers. He got a set. They look like this:

He has let me smell, and discuss the relative value of, each marker. Sam’s favorite is mango. Pressed for an answer, I affirmed cinnamon as mine. I then had to rank each other marker as progressively less lovely until we got to the worst one (grape- it smells like cough syrup).

Every single thing he’s drawn in the past week is drawn, heavily, in marker and sniffed at length.

Although, looking at this box, I see it’s a set of 18. Sam’s is only 12. I’d better not let him see this post!

A little pee

So there’s a family story about Niya being potty-trained.

We brought Jaydin home from the hospital.

Niya was two and a half.

She looked at the baby in my arms, sighed, and said, “I guess I’ll have to use the potty now.”

And she did. She was potty-trained from that day forward. We’ll just say this story was different from her brother’s and leave it at that.

On the other hand, this insta-training only applies when she’s conscious. For a child who resists sleep with every molecule in her body, once she’s asleep she’s out for the count. Unfortunately this includes deafness to the call of nature.

In the interests of helping her learn to wake up and pee at night, her Mommy, diligently, goes into her room every night around ten. She urges Niya to wake up enough to walk to the bathroom and use the toilet. She then walks her back to bed. Sometimes this is more of a carry/drag than a walk, but it gets done. It works too. She’s sleeping through the night and she’s staying fully dry.

Until last night. I think it might have something to do with the time change. But when Ter went in to do the nightly zombie walk, it was too late.

Nonetheless, she took her damp daughter and conveyed her to the potty. Unfortunately for her, Niya both still needed to pee and was too soundly asleep to balance on the potty properly. At just the right moment she slid just enough forward and peed all over Terri’s feet.

This is the love of a mother. With damp arms (from carrying a damp daughter) and damp feet, she changed damp sheets and set up a clean, fresh bed for a now-clean, fresh daughter.

Then she cleaned herself up, and got to bed an hour later than planned.

The full Halloween Post

The full Halloween story actually starts on the Sunday before Halloween. This is important, because it is the only way you will see Niya’s full costume. We had a neighborhood Halloween party. Here are some pictures of the kids before we headed over for the festivities.

We went to the party. The kids had a great time. We came home from the party. We put away the costumes for Halloween.

Picture three calendar pages (the daily kind) floating by. It’s Halloween. The kids have a half day. They get home from school. Niya immediately goes to Anthony’s house to play. Sam goes upstairs to draw with his smelly markers (his favorite is mango).

At three, Terri tells the kids to pop in the car so they can pick me up from work. Mind you, the request goes like this, “Please get in the car so we can get Mama. Once she’s home we’re going to carve our pumpkins and then get ready for trick-or-treating.” This should not be a hard sell.

Niya: “No! I am playing with Anthony. I’m not going.”

Sam: “No! I am drawing. Leave me home.”

A few minutes later, everyone is in the car and they are on the way to pick me up. Ter calls to tell me to be ready. I can’t hear her over the sounds of Niya shrieking. I offer to stay at work longer.

I am fetched. We stop to look for shoes for Niya to wear to Synagogue on Saturday since she’s singing, but no luck. She’s a 12.5 and everything was either too big or too small.

We get home. Niya rockets out of the car and over to Anthony’s house. Sam goes upstairs, pumpkin in hand, and we carve out the faces. We were trying for angry, but both kids said it ended up looking like an Asian pumpkin. Great. I made a racial caricature to put on my porch. I tried to fix it, but I think I made it worse. That pumpkin was added to the compost heap immediately the next morning. The second pumpkin, obviously the smaller and less visible one, came out okay.

Here’s how the pumpkins looked:

Meanwhile, Terri, who is clever, wrote a poem riddle and texted it to our neighborhood friends letting them know there were special treats to the side of the driveway for them. They were guarded by the cat-scarecrow that Niya and Grandma made.

The treats were in the bag- Doritos and Kit Kats. The kids loved it.

By then we were ready to feed the kids dinner. Spaghetti sauce with browned turkey and focaccia garlic bread and peas. A delicious dinner by any measure. Niya turned it down to eat with Anthony. Sam ran around like a banshee hopped up on sugar (he hadn’t had any yet). Grandma, Terri, and I enjoyed dinner.

I dragged Niya home and costumed her. A little. She refused her mask, arm and leg bands, and all weaponry. She fidgeted through the whole process and jetted out the door before the belt was firmly tied.

Sam worked hard to hold still while every last lace on his costume was laced and tied.

We went over to Anthony’s since that was apparently going to be the only way we’d ever see our daughter. Sure enough, she was playing football.

I hadn’t realized the importance of the pre-trick-or-treating game.

We finally pulled the kids away from football to be photographed. You can see how delighted Niya was by the change in activity.

That second one was what I got when I asked for a Ninja pose.

On the other hand, here is Sam’s response to being asked to pose:

Grandma was perhaps less than pleased when I encouraged Sam to act like he was attacking her.

After a lot of cajoling, the football game ended, the photoshoot was brought to a close, and we all started off on our trick-or-treating adventure.

And then it got dark and we all know about my photography skills and changes in light, so this is the last of the pictures.

The kids did a good job of only going to houses with external lights on. They did nice clear loud calls of “Trick or treat!” and mostly remembered to say thank-you without parental prompting.

In past years, we’ve pretty much done the three dead-end streets and called it quits. This year though, the kids were bigger and the group was smaller. We did three full blocks. Then Niya and Anthony did all the dead-end streets as well. Sam, however, ran out of steam and so he and I headed back home early. He sat on the front porch and handed out candy. Just like his first Halloween with us, I think the distributing of candy was his favorite part.

Everyone was back home and inside by 7:15. Both kids went through their candy and picked out the ten pieces they were going to eat. The rest went back into pumpkins and under parental control.

By 8:00, the candy had been devoured, Niya had discovered she doesn’t like red-hots and Sam found he didn’t like Snickers. Sam’s best treat was a rice-crispy bar. Niya’s was the jolly-rancher fruit chew. Their teeth had been THOROUGHLY brushed, pajamas were on, and everyone piled into bed. I read them the next chapter of Aliens on Vacation and they were both off to sleep.

I was just grateful that we’d gotten through the night- and that there wasn’t another one for a whole year!

Getting caught up on old pictures- Another football game

Here’s a football practice followed by a football game. These pictures are now dated enough that I don’t really remember any details, so you just get them in a clump.

And mom, diligently watching, and working on her cross-stitch project.