The end of summer

Grandsons ready to go to the busstop for their new adventures

Allie trying to finish the popsicle before it melts in the 90 deg heat

cousins

Allie finished her popsicle and then asked Maya to Share

No I would not have gotten grape but kids hate lemon

a pensive Maya

My lone red pepper. I had a bunch of baby peppers that somehow failed to reach maturity. I've been much more successful growing tomatoes particularly Romas though these pictured are not Romas. If I let these ripen on the vine, various animals attack them fore seeds

Maya looking very apprehensive in her class. She has acute stranger anxiety. She met the teacher last May but probably forgot her. These girls were in her Safety Town class tied to console her.

With the early Memorial Day and late Labor Day, we had the longest summer possible. It is over now though it will be again hot and humid before the cold front finally (finally!!!) moves in tonight.

Inner nag says I should be out there running right now (or should have been 2 hours ago) but I am taking a rare break. Every day this summer I either ran or biked or both excepting the 2 days after I travelled.

 

The kids return to school today. A new school for both Maya and Daniel and the first time they will both be in an all day program. A big adjustment for the two of them. Tessa doesn't start school until tomorrow but she is chomping at the bit. I worried most about Maya. The school sent nothing in advance about lunches, supplies and their website is useless. There was a transition meeting last spring with at least 10 adults: special ed generalists from both schools, classroom teachers, principals, speech therapists, occupational therapists deciding what needs to be done. Her neighborhood school does not have a young fives program so she had to apply to go to a different school that has. She would have been bussed to the neighborhood school (no young five program) but Naomi will have to drive Maya to the other school though it is not far. Ann Arbor Public Schools is always hand wringing about the 'achievement gap'. Well this is a prime example why the gap persists. It is much more difficult for those without resources to get their child in the young five program so they just send them off to kindergarten instead even if the child is not ready. Yep kindergarten isn't the fun filled playroom any more. The kids are expected to be able to read coming in. Back in the olden days, we had 3 goals to accomplish by the end of kindergarten know the alphabet, count to 20 and tied ones shoes. And this was in NY where the state's standards in general were much higher than Michigan's (I found this out for myself when I transferred to a working class school district in Michigan and the kids all  were much behind those in Corning NY)

 

We had everyone over in the ninety degree heat of yesterday trying to keep the kids outside despite the sweltering heat though I think the heat was harder on the adults. Fun watching the grandkids interact. At one point, a female hummingbird hovered in front of my DIL wondering who was invading her territory. She never saw a humming bird so close.