Mystery Reader

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Today I went up to Abby’s school and I read to her class. I was, what they call, their “mystery reader”. They don’t tell the kids who is coming to read and then it’s supposed to be a surprise when one of the kids’ parents shows up. Abby was telling us earlier in the week that the “mystery reader” was where a mommy came up and read to the class. Jennifer asked her, “Well, what about daddies? Can they come up and read?” “No,” Abby said. “Only mommies.” So, when I showed up, she was quite surprised. Some of the kids said, “It’s a daddy!” I brought the book Are You My Mother? and I explained to them how that was my favorite book when I was their age. Everything went fine and Abby gave me a hug before I left.

First Award for Excellence

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Today Abby received an “Noble Knight Award for Excellence”. Her teacher called and said that she is a treat to have in class. She participates in everything and is actually very funny and cute. This was good to hear since we got a “note from the teacher” telling us how she needs to learn to listen a couple of weeks ago.

First Cafeteria Lunch

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I’m continuing the “first” theme. Today Abby ate the cafeteria food for the first time. I know we all have bad memories of horrible cafeteria food, but you have to put yourself in the shoes of a kindergartner, where this is a whole new experience. Lunch money has gone “high tech”. She has to remember an ID number and tell the person at the end of the check-out line her number. Over the Internet, we’ve allocated a certain amount of money to her account for her to buy lunch. She had pizza and loved it. She was all ready to eat the cafeteria food the next day, but we convinced her to bring her lunch so she doesn’t blow through the $25 that we’ve allocated to her account.

I, Robot

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Tonight we watched I, Robot off of our Netflix queue. This is a movie staring Will Smith and is very loosely based on the science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov. A scientist friend of Smith’s character is murdered and he’s suspicious of a robot, but robots are programmed not to harm humans. The visual effects on this movie are amazing and it’s a good adventure movie. However, don’t go in expecting anything of substance and don’t expect to see Asimov’s original novel.

Envy

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I always have to watch Ben Stiller movies on my own. Jennifer can’t stand his movies. So, when I heard about a movie with both Ben Stiller and Jack Black it was instantly on my Netflix queue. I figured you can’t go wrong. Well, Envy is by far one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a while. It has a great premise: Jack Black character invents a spray can which instantly disintegrates dog poop. How much I wish I had a can of that for all the dogs that take a crap in my front yard. However, the premise is all that’s good about this movie. I would suggest staying away from this movie even if you are a Stiller and Black fan.

First Day of Pre-school

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Now that Abby is a pro at getting on and off the school bus, it]s time to send off Emily to pre-school, but for three times a week this year. Today was Emily’s first day of pre-school. This was also a first because Emily now has the same teacher Abby had two years previous and they are all anxiously awaiting to teach Isabelle two years from now. Emily entered school like she had always been there. She sat down at the table, waved to Jennifer, and said, “bye Mom”.

First Day of Kindergarten

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The day finally arrived. We had to put Abby onto the school bus for the first time ever. They took her away from us at 7:10 this morning and we had no idea if she ever made it to school until 2:40 this afternoon when she hopped off. It was tough to see her go and I could tell she was starting to well up with tears as the bus doors closed, but when she got off the bus in the afternoon, we knew everything had gone okay. She said she had no trouble getting off the bus and walking to her new class. She also told us she sang songs and ate in a cafeteria, a new experience for her. She’s looking forward to tomorrow and I know Jennifer and I will feel better since she’s already gone through it once.

NCAA Football 07 (Xbox 360)

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It’s that time again. NCAA Football has been release and George and I have started up our Strange Brew College Football League once again. I’m once again going to be Baylor as I try to rebuild a struggling team. George is picking Rice this year because of the connection to Major Applewhite being the Offensive Coordinator. The NCAA team did a great job of taking what we shipped in Madden 06 for the Xbox 360 and converting it to NCAA. A full featured Dynasty Mode is there and George and I bought a cable which allows us to trade our Dynasty over e-mail.

Meeting Abby’s Elementary School Teacher

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Tonight we went to Abby’s new Elementary school to meet her Kindergarten teacher. She seems really nice and well suited to teach Kindergarten. Her presentation was all over the place and she was easily distracted by other topics that came up. She seems to love her job, getting excited at just the thought of seeing our children reading to the class. My first impression of the school: big. Abby is going to be expected to get off the bus and walk all the way across the campus to her room all on her own. There will be people to help the kids the first couple of weeks. However, Jennifer and I are still scared to death that she’s going to get lost and break down into a puddle of tears. Tomorrow, we head out with Abby to her class room. We are also thinking of taking her up this weekend and letting her walk from where the bus is going to drop her off to her class room.