May I brag?

I sent the following message out via e-mail to family and friends recently. And I am still bursting with pride, so here it goes again (for those who already received it) and here it is (for those who did not). There is something different at the end--so if you stop reading now, you may miss something.

Hi, everybody--


Just a proud mommy writing to let you know that three of Oyster's art projects were chosen by her teacher to send to Art Break this year. She has had at least one piece in the show each year we have been in town. This year one of her three won a Showcase Award! Each school gets to choose 21 pieces to enter into the contest. I have no idea how many win or what the various names of the awards convey--but the ribbon was blue.


Also, at the after-school program she attends she had several poems chosen to go into a book. They named the book after one of her poems, "Over the Hill and through the Gate." And here is the poem:


Over the Hill and through the Gate


Every once in a while, I dream of my own personal playground. It is magical. My mom always comes with me. When we go, we just walk over the hill and through the gate. The gate is made of wood strips. The hill's grass is green. There is an invisible man. Sometimes he even makes ME invisible! He is the one who makes everything magic!


She turned in her Share Fair project today and I have my fingers crossed that she will get an A. She and her firend, Abalone, put a lot of work into it. Abalone wrote about how Egyptian pyramids were constructed. Oyster wrote about what has been found inside Egyptian tombs. Last year she received first place in the Science and the Social Studies fairs. This year the third grade combined them into one fair and the kids had a lot of latitude in choosing a project. The competition looked pretty tough (I helped set up the displays yesterday evening after the PTA meeting). Keep your fingers crossed.

As soon as school ends (May 27), Oyster goes under the knife. Adenoids and tonsils come out on May 28 in what is scheduled to be out-patient surgery. The doctor advises she needs one week in bed and a following week of very quiet activity, then should be able to resume her normal life. We are hoping this will nix the chronic cough she has had since she was two. We will no longer be dealing with huge tonsils that make it hard to swallow, too. And, I have heard that maybe her disposition will become less irritable when she is feeling better. We will all enjoy that.