Conference Weekend, Haircuts, Cheerleading, and Walking Practice

Conference weekend began as usual on Saturday, September 30. We overloaded on cinnamon rolls we acquired via the Young Men fundraiser. We watched the morning session. Ever played some conference bingo. Between sessions, Wrenzy (clad only in undies and some hand-me-down bedroom slippers) helped Jim in the yard.

Ever and I prepared a muffin tin of snacks labeled with a word or phrase for each tin. During the afternoon session, she got to eat one of the items in a tin when she heard that word or phrase. 

She ran out of some snacks (turns out "love" is a big one) and never got to eat others, so we had to do some shuffling. On the whole, though, I like the idea.

When the afternoon session was about a half hour from concluding, I thought, as Ever was sitting on my lap, that I should check her hair for ukus (hair lice). Sure enough, she had them. I had no reason to suspect, as she never did any itching, but I'd thought shortly after school started that I should start checking her. Jim was highly interested in examining what we found under the girls' little microscope (and in fact did not believe me that she had ukus until he did so), but I was anxious to spring into action. I was SO glad I found it that day, when Jim was home and could start the laundry and deal with the other girls while I did her treatment. If I'd discovered it on a Monday morning or something, it would have been a nightmare. 

Ever was up for a haircut, so I started to cut and then got scared and let Jim take over. He did a real bang-up job. By the end it was so short and weird and mushroom-like that I started laughing uncontrollably but tried to hide it so I wouldn't upset Ever. That turned to crying - not sad crying but the kind that Mamo does when she starts laughing really late at night and can't stop. Ever never caught on and actually liked Jim's handiwork, so that was good. This was when the front was close to the length I envisioned it all over:

After the haircut debacle, I combed out her hair for at least three hours, trying to make sure I got everything. (I didn't. I found more nits later, but by the third and final treatment, her hair was clean.) 

Monday after school I took her to Supercuts for a fix-it cut and decided to get Wren's wisps trimmed, too. Why is it that kids look so cute and big when they get real haircuts?

So conference weekend didn't end up being ideal, but like I said - glad I discovered it when I did. I'd love never to deal with ukus again, but I'm sure I won't be that lucky.

I took a picture of Ever later in the week to document her short hair on a good hair day. She is getting so big.

Later that morning, Wren went outside to watch the garbage truck dressed like this:

She's currently obsessed with her flower jammies and wants to wear them all day every day. The hat was given to her by Jim's home teachee at Easter. It was quickly forgotten but for some reason has come back into favor recently.

Palmquist (and other Oceanside elementary schools) offers, for a fee, some after-school activities for several weeks at a time. Ever wanted to do dance/cheer, but I basically said Daddy and I really aren't into that and didn't sign her up. Then she found out her friend Leela was doing it, and she REALLY wanted to do it. I heard that I couldn't sign her up late because it was full, so I got out of it this time. She's getting her cheer exposure at recess now. A girl in her class, Naomi, is the "coach," and she teaches Ever, Leela, and one or two other girls cheers during every recess. Ever loves it. She does them at home all the time, and the Monday after conference I caught her teaching Wren. "Hit it!" 

Ever said the boys want to play with them during recess, and it's really annoying because they just want to do cheer. At our parent/teacher conference last week, Mrs. Tesluk brought it up and said it's really good for Naomi (being the teacher) and also really odd hearing these girls doing cheers like, "Dominate! Decimate!" Pretty funny.

In other news, Tyna has been practicing walking. One day she was standing up, doing a victory grunt, going down to the floor, and then standing back up again, over and over, like she was exercising. She has had some good walking performances but hasn't been consistent. This was one of her better stints (I have bad excited voice):