Thursday, February 5, 2009

Robbins Rumble

Well it has been awhile since I wrote here. And I can’t say there is a whole lot to say. But I can tell a few vignettes about the Robbins House lately.
We had Winterfest at the lake. Laurel taught herself to ice skate while we were there. Her persistence always amazes me. She just keeps trying and trying until she succeeds. I hope she always keeps this trait.
This weekend Laurel and I sold Girl Scout cookies. It was amazing how many we sold, even though you could tell some really did not want any cookies. Laurel was funny. She said, “Mom for some reason people have a hard time saying no to brownies.”
This weekend Laurel and Owen got new desks. It brings me back to when Denise and I got matching desks from Sears Surplus. They had all these cool little compartments to display my treasures, mostly Smurfs. Anyway, Laurel and Owen are taking pride in their personal learning space. Thanks to Grammy, we went to Staples to buy some basics like staplers, tape and pencils. Hopefully now my desk supplies will stay where they belong.
Owen had his first Pinewood Derby Race. He came in second for his den. It was nice to see Owen and Justin working closely to make this cool golden car. The chemists at Justin’s job shared some gold and silver nail polish straight from the lab. They also used the agitator balls from nail polish to up the weight a little. It was fun to see everyone pitch in to make a car from a block of wood.
Owen is finishing his first wrestling season. I am proud of how he has stuck with this. Although the matches were a little rough to watch, he is not the most aggressive child and he pretty much only does moves that he has learned. At one match he kept getting body slammed. By the 7th time you could see in his face that it was not really fun anymore. After the match we were talking about it. He said, “Mom, he kept doing this move I did not learn yet and we did not learn how to get out of the move yet either so I just kept landing on the floor.”
I am afraid Laurel has gotten my awful teeth genes. We went to the dentist Tuesday and Owen the ten second tooth-brusher got a “good job.” Laurel, who rinses, brushes and flosses so long every night we have to tell her to get to bed has 4 cavities. She was sad and told me it hurt in her heart because she tries so hard to take care of her teeth and she still got cavities. I tried giving her a pep talk but she was still sad. She asked Owen to promise not to tell anyone at school. Somehow Owen “accidentally” told his friend. This must be big news for first and second graders because according to Laurel the entire lunchroom knew. She was mad at Owen and started chasing him around the lunchroom. Owen was scared of her wrath and started screaming. Eventually both children were disciplined by the teacher on duty. Sounds like it was a real Robbins Rumble at Riverview School today!