Well.
Caroline is officially a fifth grade graduate. We are understandably excited because it’s about time she go out into the world to look for gainful employment and quits mooching off us. Which is why we gave her a briefcase to celebrate.
Not really. Although I will tell you that’s what my dad gave me for college graduation. It sent a clear message that I was expected to get a job. Frankly, I felt like a red convertible BMW could have conveyed a similar message.
On Thursday morning she was ready to go albeit a little put out that she had to wear a dress. However, it didn’t curb her excitement for long.
The ceremony was sweet and I honestly didn’t cry at all until the very end when they did a little slideshow of the year. But I’m a huge sucker for pictures set to music. You could show me your vacation photos from Williamsburg where you purchased a “Got History?” t-shirt as a souvenir and it would make me cry if it was accompanied by some heartfelt songs.
The school had sent a note home earlier in the week with all the graduation details and informed parents that we should plan to take our children home right after the ceremony so we could “celebrate as a family”. I think we all know that’s code for “The fifth grade teachers are exhausted, don’t let the door hit you on the way out”. So there was a quick reception in every classroom afterwards and then we collected any remaining belongings and walked out of the doors of the elementary school for the last time. I think I would have been more emotional if all the end of the year activities hadn’t left me in the near fetal position.
We’d told Caroline we would take her to eat lunch anywhere she wanted and she chose IHOP. Because we raise ’em classy around here. But then she decided her stomach didn’t feel great and wasn’t sure she wanted to go eat anywhere so we just went home and she opened a couple of little graduation presents. Then later on when she was hungry I took her to an Italian place she loves for a cheese pizza.
Those helium balloons were from her Gigi and provided several minutes of entertainment the next day when Caroline enjoyed what helium does to your voice.
Finally, we ended the day at the pool with friends. It’s always our favorite way to celebrate the end of the school year and we are always the last ones there at the end of the evening. This year was no exception.
And then I’d love to tell you how we slept late on Friday morning, but that would be a lie. The truth is I woke up to the puppies going crazy. P lets them outside when he wakes up in the morning and they were whining and barking. I threw on my robe and stumbled outside to see what was going on only to discover that Mabel had managed to get her head stuck in the iron scrolls of one of our patio chairs. This presented quite the dilemma. It felt very reminiscent of that episode of Designing Women when Julia Sugarbaker gets her head stuck in the banister at the Governor’s Mansion.
I couldn’t figure out where P was and had never wanted his help more, but I didn’t feel like I could leave Mabel to go find him. So instead I gently pulled one ear back through and then managed to get the rest of her head out right as P walked outside. He explained he’d been busy cleaning up the mess in the guest bathroom where an undetermined perpetrator had not only pooped in the bathtub but had also annihilated a roll of Charmin that we’d forgotten to put out of their reach.
The short story is the puppies are now officially sleeping in their crates outside. At some point Caroline wants them to sleep in her room with her but we tried it last night and I have the bags under my eyes to prove it today. It all feels very reminiscent of Caroline’s newborn days when I’d bargain with God if he would just please let my baby go to sleep. It’s a good thing they’re so cute because otherwise I might have put them on Craig’s List.
The rest of the weekend wasn’t nearly that eventful. Caroline and I went shopping on Saturday and she bought her first pair of sunglasses that immediately transformed her into a teenager and then we went over to Gulley’s house because they had to put their dog, Annie, to sleep on Saturday morning and we wanted to check on them. It’s been a rough season for dogs around here. So many of us have these dogs that we bought before we had kids and they’re all past their prime at this point because our kids are doing things like graduating from fifth grade.
On Sunday we went to church and then I took Caroline and a friend to see Maleficent. My expectations weren’t high, but I have to say that I loved it. Like the kind of loved it that I would see it again. It was ultimately a sweet story and Angelina Jolie is stunning. And I guess this shows the kind of minutiae I value because I noticed that virtually all of the character’s eyebrows were a triumph. If I hadn’t already been on a year-long quest to grow the perfect eyebrow for my face shape, this would have sealed it for me. I will tell you that based on this movie, it appears to be true that a fuller eyebrow is the eyebrow of youth. Just like we learned from Brooke Shields all those years ago.
Of course she also encouraged us to wear Calvin Kleins and I’m not sure we necessarily want to go back there.