Norah finishes her first year of school

I haven't been updating about Norah recently because, well, she's in Arizona and I'm in Pennsylvania, so it's hard to keep up. I do know that when she first got in the pool a few weeks ago, she actually said, "Shiver me timbers, that's cold!" Because she's, you know, awesome. But her first year of school ends today, and Krys told me yesterday that she picked up a bunch of awards. Yes, it's kindergarten, and in today's society, we have to give awards to everyone, but in her school, which is a bit tougher than a regular school, they seem to give standard awards and not necessarily to everyone. So that's nice.

Norah received honors for reading 25 books and 50 books, for knowing 120 Ayres (Ayers?) words, for "citizenship," for outstanding homework, something for math skills, and one for penmanship. I imagine most of the kids got the ones for reading and knowing the words, but I know not everyone got one for citizenship and penmanship. The citizenship one comes from the fact that she never got anything other than an "O" for her behavior (they can get "O" for "outstanding," "S" for satisfactory, and "N" for "needs improvement"), something not all the kids can say. According to her teacher, not many kids got an award for penmanship - the teacher could be lying, but I've seen some of the kids' penmanship and I really hope they didn't win anything! (That's mean, but some of the kids really need to work on their writing.) So while I'm proud of her hard work, I'm just as proud of her behavior and the fact that she does really try very hard no matter what she's doing in school.

Krys and Norah will be visiting Pennsylvania next week, which I'm looking forward to, and maybe I'll have some more to write about with regard to the younger daughter. Who knows. Right now, she's finishing her kick-ass first year at school. Yay, Norah!