art and celebration

Last week I was grateful for distractions.

I had a roommate in college who more than once told me "you think too much.," not about money making ventures, or a cure for cancer, or even about music, just mulling over and obsessing about life, and my being unavoidably, imperfectly human, and not sparing similar thoughts about others. So children are a wonderful distraction to me, because I now find almost everything about their human-ness irresistibly charming.

Thursday we celebrated Caitlin's fourth birthday by hosting playgroup at our home. The kids rolled out their own pizzas and sprinkled their own cupcakes. I'm a do-it-yourself kind of hostess out of pure necessity. Caitlin said it was "the best birthday party ever." Thank you Caitlin. I needed that.


Earlier in the week, back to Tuesday, I was grateful to spend the day at ISB. Ms. Noella, the art teacher, invited the moms to come in and help the kindergartners with a garbage and hot glue project, making their own inventions out of recyclables. Mary is a perceptive child, like her mom. I asked her what she was inventing. She said "I'll just put stuff together and see what it turns into." It was my third year to participate in the hot gluing. We have been blessed to have three great years of kindergarten at ISB.


After art class I had time to watch Olivia's last day of swimming class, then had lunch with Mary.

In the evening, we went back to ISB to watch the wushu film making awards. Every year the teacher assigns the students to group together and make a wushu movie. Several films were recognized in each category. Sam's film, Wushu Pianist, was recognized in the categories of best camera work and best editing. Sam also helped another group finish their editing. That film was also recognized in the best editing category. I was grateful that Sam had that self-esteem building experience.


Friday was Come and Share the Arts Day known as CASTA. I spent the whole day at school watching the kids' performances and wandering around the school to find their art pieces. The camera ran out of power before the day had finished, so I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked to. Mary's mask is the top, center.

Bethany is performing a Russian folk dance. She's over on the right with the pony tails.

All of the children brought home appliques, is that the word, that they designed and colored themselves. I ironed them on the t-shirts that they were given to wear on CASTA day.
I enjoyed observing the children's friends' shirts, thinking about their unique personalities and why they chose to draw what they did. Sometimes I love how being human makes us all so different.