Last week…
Grace was chosen to be the Star Student of the week.
She has been waiting for this moment. Her entire 2nd grade experience has been leading up to having her name announced. Grace. Star Student.
It’s been no cake walk being selected as star student. Grace’s first night as Star Student she had specific Star Student homework: she needed to make a poster of her life and times and bring it the next morning to show the class…complete with pictures.
Honestly, getting a project like this…and one that needs to be done in one night about makes me crazy. I know that the pictures we need are hidden in boxes or on hard drives in my studio cupboards. It will take hours to sort through them and we’ll be up for hours late into the night getting it done.
The sooner I give into this notion…that we’ll be up all night and why don’t we just have fun with it…the better the night goes. The longer I fight it, hoping we’ll still get everyone to bed at a decent hour, the more miserable I make everyone else.
So this project became our Family Fun night last Monday. We laughed and ate brownies and everyone helped out in one way or another.
(Through out the rest of the week she needed to bring special items with her to school to share but none of them can be toys and Mike and I were to write letters or poems.)
On this first night of poster making….
After Grace, Emma, and I waded through 100’s of pictures Grace finally decided on the 10-20 that she would use for her poster. When pictures come out of hiding at our house (I really need to get them into books…I’m working on that…) everyone wants to get involved. Each person is hoping to come across pictures of themselves and the stories that accompany the searching. It becomes a family project for a little while. I love seeing the kids help each other. It’s even more fun to hear them beg for stories about each picture.
Right after diner everyone was in the ktichen gather around the table talking about which picture was best, how to arrange them, and how sweet Gracie was as a baby and that one time she got her arm broken.
A little while later brownies came out of the oven, Mike and Emmett were standing at the counter watching football highlights on the ipad, and Miriam and Emma were chatting about friends.
Ocassionally, Emmet would join Grace and I at the table to give his two cents on the project, laugh about a picture, or help glue a picture or two one. Just feet away Miriam, Emma, and Mike were playing old Christmas Bingo games that we made years ago.
Star Student became a family affair. Every day we would ask Grace what that day had been like as Star Student.
I love it when my house feels like this…like familyness. Everyone just wanting to be in the same room together or helping on a school project or eating brownies together.
That’s familyness.
What does familyness look like at your house?
Leave a reply