Keeping up with the Rosses

At Isla’s preschool, a Celebration of Life ceremony is held to mark the special occasion of the children’s birthdays. All of the children sit in a circle with a symbol for the sun in the center of the circle. The birthday child then holds a symbol for the planet Earth while walking around the circle, one lap for each year of their life. The kids sing a simple song (“the farmer and the dell” melody)- “The Earth around the sun, the Earth around the sun, around, around , around, around, the Earth around the sun.” Then, pictures of the birthday child are shown while the story of the child’s life is read aloud. In one word, it’s precious.

In a few more words, it’s a bit of work! Who writes the story? Who organizes the pictures? Isla, of course! But Isla, of course, needs more than a little assistance. Fortunately, these are the kinds of projects I seriously adore.

Oh, and snacks. Once a month or so, we are assigned a day to bring snacks for the whole class. For your Celebration of Life day, you’re logically assigned snack duty. Cupcakes!! No. No sweets at this forward-thinking school. Again, another project I seriously adore. Say what you will about the Internet/Pinterest/etc, I, for one, appreciate the ideas. Isla and I chose to bring butterfly snack bags and fruit/veggie “cupcakes.” Isla carefully painted each clothespin, chattering all along about the kids in her class.

Isla showed up for school today, proudly wearing her new 4-yr-old outfit from her Aunt Addie. Asher and I were invited to stay for the ceremony, but I declined. Isla gets very clingy and introverted when I’m with her for group activities. I believed she’d enjoy the day more thoroughly without me. So we’ll see when we go back to pick her up very soon! Happy Celebration of Life day, Isla!

P.S.- If you know of any Mom of the Year competitions going on, I’m ready to nominate myself.