May Day 2011

Today was Makaela's first May Day (and sadly, probably her last), but after much deliberating, I decided to take a personal day so I could attend her assembly. The place was packed! Being an intermediate school teacher, I forgot how excited parents get at little ones' assemblies- the irony in this is that I should have realized this considering I took off, but I have learned my lesson that next time, I will show up 30 mins early to get a seat. Anyway, the kids were adorable- each age group/class represented a different island of Hawaii. Makaela's class represented Kaho'olawe and they had two songs to sing. The school was very thoughtful in that they corded off an area for parents to stand when their children got up to sing- once your child was done, you vacated the area for the next group of parents. So anyway, I got to get up nice and close to take some video and you can see from the video that she was more than thrilled to see me. It didn't hurt that I showed up in the same exact dress that she was wearing :-)

Sadly, my camera flashed "memory full" as Makaela's group sang the second song, but her teacher had the kids sing the songs over again for the parents back in the classroom. Here is the second song they sang. I am utterly amazed that Makaela memorized a song in Hawaiian- I'm thinking that I need to get her on some Rosetta Stone CDs. The girl is a sponge!

After the presentation, we had a potluck lunch and wow- there was tons of food. Hawaiian hospitality at its finest. Makaela told me we had to bring pasta salad so we did (and of course she didn't eat any of it), but we had fun eating everyone else's food. Her teacher also put me in charge of a little boy who parents couldn't come and it made me realize how important these things are.

I also got to watch a little girl spill milk on herself and blame Makaela for it- it took quite a bit of will power not to "correct" the situation, especially when she told her dad (all decked out in army fatigues) about it, but he noticed that Makaela hadn't been drinking milk, so I was so glad I didn't say anything. It's crazy how petty you get over your kids.

When it was time to go, Makaela was ...well, she was distraught, but I needed to get grading done. Many of the kids were the same way and the teachers were working overtime to coax and hug the kids. However, three hours later, when I picked her up to head to Ilima's graduation, she was happy as could be.

At bedtime, we copied the Weidas and now talk about the best part of our day and tonight she said the best part of her day was when her mommy came to have lunch with her at school...again, now I see the importance of taking off to make it to these functions.