Character Trait

Each month this past school year at my daughter's school, some of the teacher's nominated a child from their class for a character trait. My daughter was nominated for the trait of perseverance in the month of April.

The school had sent home a note asking for parent volunteers to help with the party/picnic for the nominated kids. My daughter basically begged me to do this so I had hubby take a vacation day so I could go. I had to when my daughter was saying, "Please please please mommy!" How could I not?

They were also asking for donations of popsicles too. The plan was to let the nominated kids eat their lunch outside on the playground and have a popsicle while out there.

Well, the day before I got a call from the school saying they had had a lot of parent volunteers and they didn't need me to help after all and I didn't need to get popsicles either as they had enough donations for that too.

I told the woman on the phone that my daughter REALLY wanted me there and had begged me to help. She said I could still come and eat lunch with my daughter so it was all good. I was a bit annoyed though at first but not mad. I was thinking, "Hmmmm....how do they decide which parents they want to help and which they don't?" I mean, here I was willing to take the time to come up there and buy popsicles only to be told nevermind. I'm thinking maybe they made this decision based on when you got your note returned? I did send ours back a bit late but I had to wait to make sure hubby could get the day off. Luckily I hadn't bought the popsicles yet because they would have probably gone to waste at our house since we probably wouldn't have ever eaten them. We're an ice cream family!

In the end I was glad they decided they didn't need my help after all because I found out that my daughter wouldn't have been at the party/picnic the whole time anyway. She was only going to be there for her 30 minute lunch period and they were wanting volunteers for a 2 hour window. I thought all the kids got to go for the full 2 hours but I was mistaken.

Soooo......yesterday hubby took the day off and I stayed with my daughter at school when I walked her up there about 9am. I did some things in the classroom to help out the teacher. I cut out some things she had had laminated. Got some other things ready to be laminated. Reorganized a rack of books that a few of the kids had TOTALLY mixed up and I also separated a bucket of crayons between broken ones and ones that were still bigger.

By the time I finished all this, it was lunchtime. I went with my daughter who for the first time at school was getting a school lunch. The only other time she had eaten a school lunch was on one of her field trips. She usually takes her lunch so a school lunch was something she was excited for! We figured it was a special day and we knew she'd eat at least the main part of what was on the menu so we let her get one. She had already told me that she would share it with me. How cute! Since it was raining outside the party/picnic ended up being held in the gym. They had set up tables with chairs and also had some blankets on the floor to sit on.

Good thing I was there because my daughter would have wasted MOST of her lunch. This is a prime example of why she takes a lunch from home every other day. All she ate was the pizza, a few bites of carrots, and a sip or two of the chocolate milk then she went and got her popsicle. I ate the salad, the peaches, the rest of the carrots, and drank the remainder of the milk.

After lunch I went with her and her class to music where they had a substitute so they were just watching a movie. I stayed for a little bit then headed home for about an hour and a half. Then hubby, my son, and I went back to the school for the Character Trait Awards Assembly. I took some pictures of her standing on stage and videotaped her walking back to her seat. I was so proud of her for getting this award!