Conferences and other random things

During conferences, our school always has a book fair - kind of like a mini book store that comes to the school. My kids LOVE the book fair and always, always buy books from it. What always amuses me is that they buy books that i would never expect them to buy. This year, Houston bought a little book with Grumpy Cat "inspirational" sayings, a book about myths that aren't true, and "Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall." Zane bought a diary for boys and a book about sea creatures. Katrina's the only one i could possibly have predicted, with a National Geographic book about animals. (I got a $10 certificate for working at the book fair, so bought a couple of books for me too, because i am a teenage girl.)

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Tonight was the movie premier night, which i've been going to with Beth and Stephanie for the past year or so. Every 4 months, the theater offers free tickets to whoever grabs them first. They offer little containers of candy (usually - this time there were just crackers and cookies), movie posters, and a chance to win a raffle, and they show about 30-40 movie previews in a row. It sounds kind of weird, but it's actually quite an enjoyable night out. This time, my mom and two of my sisters came along, and it was totally fun.

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The school does middle school conferences like this: All of the teachers sit at a table in the gym, and you go to whatever teacher you want to talk to (usually the homeroom teacher), and they tell you how your kid is doing. There's no set times or anything. And so today we went to talk to Katrina and Houston's teachers.

Both of them were really excited about conferences, especially Houston, because he knew - knew, for the first time ever - that he was doing really, really well. No missing assignments (except that one that he didn't know about, from when he was sick), good grades in everything, and good behavior. It's such a change from the early days of his schooling, when i used to despair that he'd ever stop being in trouble all the time. It's lovely.

Katrina's conference was the fasted thing ever. Teacher: "Here's her grades. They're great. She's such a great kid, and such a pleasure to have in class, and so dedicated to working hard. Any questions?" Us: "Nope."