First official volunteer job

Reed's spent a bit of time volunteering at the food pantry with Tod, but this summer after not finding a job that worked out, he has been volunteering at the Gum Spring Library with the summer reading program.

He's been super responsible about it. He did a test-run bike ride to the library to see how long it'd take, so he knew he should leave at 9:20 to get there in time to start working at 10, and each time he did it all on his own. Baby steps toward being a responsible grown up!

Next up...hopefully getting a job at Cox Farms for the fall festival!

School's out for summer!

We made it through another school year! Both kids had great grades – Amy had straight A's, including A+ in both English and US History 1865-Present (she missed literally ONE question in the whole year!). Reed had all A's except one B+ in Algebra II/Trigonometry.

Reed didn't participate in a lot of extracurriculars, but he kept his head down and earned great grades, and kept up with his longtime friends. He still won't even get his hair trimmed, which is fascinating. (I like his long hair but still think it would benefit from a trim, but he won't budge on that and it's not worth fighting over – hey, we're saving money on hair cuts!)

Amy had such a great time in the drama production and trudged through a tough year of Spanish with a teacher she just didn't match up well with, but still ended up with an A on the year in that class (which goes toward her high school credits). She had her school-day friends but not a lot of interaction outside of school, which I think is something she wants to work on in the future (over-the-phone interactions in middle school are tough!).

Really proud of our kids!

What the????

The other night at dinner, Amy was talking about a comic book series. She said "I can't even tell what the hel....HECK is going on!"

Total silence. We all looked at her. She turned bright red. It was quite a moment! It took a minute for us to recover enough for Tod to gently remind her that wasn't really appropriate language.

What the hell!?!?

Clothes and Reed

Well first off, it's so nice when it turns out your kid actually learns something from you. For all these years, I've been the one who swapped the kids' closets each season. The only part they had to play was to try on some of the previous season's items to make sure they fit. I got everything out, I went through it, I packed the out of season clothes away.

This year I mentioned to Reed that he needed to swap to summer clothes a few weeks ago, and asked if he wanted help. He said nope, he would take care of it. And he did! Okay so he just tossed the things that didn't fit onto the hallway floor, but still! He put the summer things in the dresser and loaded the winter things in the bin in his closet. A total win!!

Then he said he need a few new pairs of shorts and shirts and asked if we could go shopping. When I picked myself up off the floor, I said sure! So we headed out to Kohls, where he picked out some shorts and a t-shirt. Then he asked "Can I get this?" and pointed to a mint-colored button-up shirt with flamingos on it. Again, I picked myself up off the floor and said of course we could. He even picked a second button-up shirt with palm trees on it. For serious. Button up shirts! Voluntarily!

The wonders never cease!