Report to Me

On Friday, I was off work, so Satchel requested that I come have lunch with him at school and watch him do his "What I did on my summer vacation" presentation. I love that he wanted me to come eat lunch with him and watch his presentation. Of course, I said yes. Jiro, who overheard our conversation, said that he too wanted to eat lunch with Satchel and watch his presentation. Mrs. Sally let Jiro come watch last year, so I didn't think she'd be opposed to him coming again. It was a date!

Lunch is an easy sell at Evergreen, because of our fabulous Lunch Daddy, Stephen Hassinger. (The Head of School warned me that Friday was sandwich day, so I got my expectations in check.) Jiro and I went upstairs just as the kids were setting the tables. (They use real table cloths, plates, silverware, etc. and eat family style.) Satchel showed me where to sit and then the kids starting jockeying for seats at my table, which made me feel special. Mathilde came up to me, smiled, and said, "You write for the newspaper!" I smiled back and said, "Yes, I do." Then the other kids started telling me how they had seen my picture in the paper and how Mrs. Beanie read my column to them. I felt special. Jiro's friends who had moved to the elementary this year were just as excited to see him, so he felt special too. Sandwich day turned out to be peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwich day. I had never had one of these before, so I was pleasantly surprised. And it turned out to be quite yummy.

After lunch there was an hour of recess. I let Jiro stay for that and I spent an hour in the office chatting with some of the teachers about our upcoming fundraiser at Tsunami on October 25th. We're doing a sit down dinner and silent auction. (Tickets go on sale today if you are interested!)

I went back upstairs at 1:30pm and settled in for the presentations--all 18 of them. The kids drew numbers from a hat to determine the order. Satchel drew 15, but traded with a friend for 10. (I think he actually wanted to go first!) The kids were really cute. Everyone had written down what they were going to say, and Mrs. Sally typed it up for them. Each person also had a visual aid. Most of them opted to have friends assist them with the holding of said visual aids. (Mrs. Sally made sure to remind everyone to hold the visual aids in a way that the audience could see them.) Also, the new elementary students who needed help reading had friends come up and prompt them, which was super cute.

Some of the reports were really quite good, and some were very entertaining. I loved when Jacey spent several sentences telling us about a smoothie she got in Florida. (The last sentence describing this treat ended with, "I spilled half of it on my dad's brand new Blackberry.") Also Theo's report on a scary man who lives in the woods of Pennsylvania was riveting. (I later learned that his dad had made this story up, unbeknownst to him.)


I had planned to make videos of everyone on my iphone, but several other parents showed up with real video cameras. So I only filmed Satchel. Satchel's report was very thorough, but VERY quiet. (I' posting this for posterity and grandparents.) I think you can hear Jiro demanding I give him the camera better than you can hear Satchel! It does pick up a bit at the end when Satchel shows his visual aids--skulls we found in Wyoming. (He brought all of his Junior Ranger info, but obviously it paled in comparison to real, live skulls!)



When the reports were over, we skipped out early and went to the movies with Warren. Not a bad way to spend the day!