April, Maine, and June: The Cruelest Month

The school year was a fight to the finish, and April, May, and June tied for the busiest, craziest, and insanest months of the year. I can't even remember the details now, honestly. It's a blur. May is always crazy so that was okay, but April got it started early, and June was not to be outdone. There was a parade of visitors at school, followed by a conference at which my colleague and I gave a knockout presentation, followed very closely by the SAT, which I read to a young man with anxiety AND dyslexia, followed by Founders' Day, followed by diagnostic testing of all the kidlets, followed by exam review, followed by exams, followed by graduation, all wrapped up with interviews of candidates for teachers AND an Elementary Director. Somewhere in there I attended the Smart Kids with LD gala, where my tutoring student won an award, and the Graduates' Dinner, where I toasted my graduating senior. Because of the relentless winter we had, we had to extend the school year by three days, which meant that I had no time off before I had to start getting ready for our June tutor training course. The next thing I knew, it was the end of June. Seriously.

Random picture of me, taken by me, in the hotel at the conference so I could send a photo home for Duncan.

 

Duncan being a ham.

 

 Mothers' Day at Hancock Shaker Villiage, where we had a picnic and visited the baby animals.  Look how cute Duncan is...then pretend I'm not in the picture.

 

Oh my gosh.  I wanted to take him home!

 

I did take him home.  But not in his Shaker outfit.

My former student, Samantha, came for Founders' Day to be on a panel of alums talking about life with dyslexia. One of the great things that happened this spring was that I helped her win an Intel Reader in a contest on Facebook.

August won a Special Recognition Award from Smart Kids with LD, for being an all around pretty cool guy.  Well, it was actually for his work running Kildonan's chapter of Project Eye-to-Eye, an organization cofounded by Jonathan Mooney, seen here with August.

Taylor graduated.

So, yeah, it was crazy, but I can't deny that a lot of good came from it too. I love my family. I love my job. I love my vacation that comes at the end of it all. Tune in next time, when I talk about the beach, the fireworks, the bikes, or other fun things of summer.

June

June flew by. Really, I don't know where it went. I worked for a great deal of June so it didn't really feel like summer until July. I did have days off here and there so I can't pretend it was all work and no play.

The first week I was training tutors for summer camp, Jamie and Duncan set up GeoTrax world so they would have something to keep Duncan occupied. They kept pretty busy. The hit the library and the bookstore, did some crafts, played outside, and made chocolate ice cream.

We got our vegetable garden going. Oddly, I have no pictures, but I'll post some soon. It can't be going too badly. We have baby peppers, lima beans, cucumbers, and watermelons taunting us in the front yard.

Duncan had a Children's Day at his preschool, and Nana and Poppy came down for the day so they could see his school and meet some of his teachers and friends. He road a pony, played in the bounce house, played some great games, and won $216 in the 50/50 raffle.

We met up with Grandma and Grandpa and Don and Sue for a barbecue at Jason and Suzanne's house. Good food, family, good friends, and croquet. Who can ask for anything more?

For Fathers' Day, we took a trip to a AAA baseball game and watched the Tri-City Valley Cats get creamed. We didn't care. We were two rows behind the visitors' dugout, and Duncan had a great view. He asked a lot of good questions about the game and really seemed to enjoy himself. We ate too much junk food (isn't that what baseball is for?), and Jamie and Duncan got new baseball caps.

We had fun visiting John, Melissa, and Anna in Hopedale, MA. Anna and Duncan played in the  sprinkler, and we visited the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park.

We all wanted this for our yards:

This was Melissa's favorite.  I was kind of fond of it too:

Finally, at the tail end of June, Jamie, Duncan, and I took a trip to Hancock Shaker Village, where we marveled in some aspects of Shaker life, such as their devotion to God and connectedness to nature and their diligence and industriousness (they harnessed water from a nearby reservoir to run their sawmill and various other running water uses!)  On the other hand, we could only shake our heads at their belief that they could propagate a religion solely through converts. We were also a little curious at how fancy and sophisticated the Trustees House was, where Shaker elders met with visitors from the outside world. It's a beautiful museum, and it was nice to take a step back and think about a simpler way of life.

Oh, yeah.  And Dawn, Diana, and I trained some teachers for summer camp. 

I seem to remember complaining at the time about having to work so soon after graduation, but in retrospect, it does seem like we were able to pack in a good amount of summer. I'm sorry for my long absence, but there you have it.  June, in a nutshell. I hope yours was as good as ours was!