Good-bye, Fifth Grade

Note to my readers: According to the comments I received after yesterday's post, it is apparently quite common to name one's GPS. Who knew??! Kelly and Erin, the comments both of you left gave me quite a kick because, as a matter of fact, the "Mandy" that I referred to was the name supplied by the TomTom for the voice I chose to give driving commands. Until now we had all been calling the TomTom--get this--"the TomTom." How boring is that?! So thanks to you, I will now be conducting an informal poll among my family to decide what, in fact, we should name the newest "member" of our family!

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This past Friday night, Randy and I were privileged to attend PCA's first ever 5th Grade Banquet, and quite a swanky affair it was! The attire was "dressy casual," a term I loathe--what does "dressy casual" mean, anyway?--with a western flair, and things didn't necessarily start out on the right foot when Tyler was the absolute ONLY kid there wearing khaki pants (at my suggestion) rather than blue jeans. Yes, I know . . . my bad. On the bright side, my decidedly un-western attire did not cause me to stick out like a sore thumb, as it appeared many other people were as stymied by the dress code as I was and simply came in whatever outfit they chose.

Randy and I spent the first 45 minutes of our time standing in line (and holding a place for Tyler), waiting for our turn to have our picture taken by a professional photographer in front of a very attractive Western backdrop. Our mish-mash of clothing choices will, I fear, ruin the look and feel of the setting but, like, whatever. (That is my very best Valley Girl impression, and please do not ask me to do it again.) Tyler, for his part, found his tablemates and they passed the time looking at baby pictures on a posterboard and trying to guess their respective classmates.

After our photograph was taken, we made our way to the serving line--dinner was catered courtesy of Babe's Chicken and wow, was it good! The headmaster, who also attended the 6th grade banquet just last week, commented that if the school year doesn't end soon he's going to put on at least 25 pounds! We feasted on chicken-fried steak (or good ol' fried chicken), mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, salad, rolls and peach cobbler/banana pudding. Mmm-mmmhhhh!!

The balance of the evening was spent listening to each teacher (there are three) extol the virtues of each of their students (roughly sixty in all). Whoa--that's a LOT of virtue! Seriously, it was wonderful to listen to the teachers tell little anecdotes about each child and honor each one with a scripture. Each teacher would build the suspense by withholding the student's name until after she had described the child, and I would be less than honest if I said I wasn't disappointed when Tyler wasn't described as "generous" or "full of integrity" or "compassionate." But as soon as Tyler's teacher stepped to the microphone and said, "This student displays the Biblical character trait of adaptability," I knew exactly where she was going. It was just too easy. She quoted Philippians 4:12 which reads in part, "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation," and she then spoke of Tyler's ability to move to a new state in the middle of the year, of his ability to move from homeschooling to private schooling and TO DO IT WELL (she even mentioned her admiration that he mastered Shurley English almost without missing a beat!), and his ability to make new friends in his new environment. I had to admit, it was very fitting.

The evening ended with a slide show during which I was pleasantly surprised to see Tyler's face many times--someone obviously went to a lot of effort to take recent photos because when e-mails started flying about the planning of the banquet a few months ago, parents were asked to submit photos of their kids from various school events, events which Tyler was not present for since he lived in Ohio at the time! We were then gifted with a lovely Western frame that included a picture of Tyler that was taken some weeks ago, and I treasure it already. Oh, and we got three laminated placemats--one with a photo of Tyler from Kindergarten (provided by me) as well as a letter that his dad and I wrote to him, and placemats with a letter that Tyler wrote to his dad and to me. The planning committee also put together a little "mini-yearbook" that included each kid's picture and a little blurb about his or her life. I am quoting this from my memory as best I can because I am too lazy to go upstairs and read what Tyler's actually says, but it said something like, "Tyler likes listening to Christian music, wrestling with his little brother and building GIGANTIC structures out of Legos. His hero is Jesus because He saved Tyler's life by giving His own. Tyler plans to have a career in architecture." Pretty neat, huh?