Riley's Turn

I feel sometimes like I don't focus enough on Riley. She had her last day of first grade earlier this week, and Phil and I were both bad parents that day. She woke up extra early (even for her), and came into our room complaining that her head hurt. She didn't want to eat much breakfast, and at first we attributed it to her not wanting school to end. I took her temp, and it was 102. Oops. And like the bad parents that we were, we sent her to school. Only because it was the last day.

I took the traditional end-of-the-school-year picture on the front steps (I'm so behind on uploading pics off the camera), and the poor girl couldn't even smile. I waited all morning to receive the phone call from the nurse saying that we had to come get her, but it never happened. All three of us went to school to have lunch with Riley, and that's when I saw her walking to the nurse. Sure enough, she had a fever. I took her back to her classroom to tell her teacher and pack up all her stuff. She was so sad, and she sat at her desk crying.

Her teacher, who has been nothing but wonderful all year, was so sympathetic to Riley's situation. She wasn't able to have the kids sign her autograph book, so her teacher promised to have the kids do it and send it to her.

On the bright side, we received Riley's report card and rankings from the standardized testing. She is in the 99th percentile for both reading and math! Unreal. And she also received the national award for the physical fitness testing, which means that she was above 50% for all the tests. 

When we got her home, she basically slept the entire afternoon (while Jeremy and I went skating and then to the pool....), but yesterday she was back to normal, fighting with her brother. Ah, it's going to be a nice long summer.

But I do have to share this: in the car yesterday, I was talking with the kids about how one of our neighbors had to have surgery because she has cancer. I believe my exact statement was that she was "gonna have surgery," to which Riley immediately said, "Mom, it's not 'gonna.' It's going to." Nice. Corrected by my 7 year old. I couldn't be prouder. :)

Riley in April.