Pre-School Graduation

Last Friday, Clay graduated (for the second time !) from preschool. This time he is graduating into kindergarten and he is so excited. As you can imagine, a preschool graduation can be pretty entertaining. Clay provided a good deal of the entertainment by himself as he struggled with a "wardrobe malfunction." You can see in the picture below that he has his gown hiked up and is trying to snap his pants that have come undone. This continues on for a minute or two and he is practically laying back in his seat trying to snap his pants as everyone is snickering. I'm trying frantically to motion to him to put his gown down and just leave his jeans alone, but he misinterprets my "put your gown down" motion as "come down off the stage and let me snap your pants". Now everyone knows who he belongs to and I can feel my cheeks turning red, but we managed to get his pants snapped and get him back on stage.

The rest of the graduation consisted of the kids singing some songs from preschool, answering questions about what they want to be when they grow up, and receiving their diploma and awards. Clay did not do any of the song motions during the practice, so I told him I might cry if he didn't do the actions that night. He looked over at me at the beginning of the songs and I gave my best sad face, so he put in a pretty good effort at going through the motions. He told us later that he "hates the Chicken Dance song" and Daddy agreed, but I was still proud of him for doing the actions.

When it was Clay's turn and Miss Tami asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said "a buffalo rider". She asked why did he want to be a buffalo rider and he responded "cause I like to get bucked off !" Out of 20 preschoolers, 12 wanted to be cowboys/cowgirls or work with horses. Thats when you know you're in a rural school. There were also some future cops, a navy seal, a teacher, a flower, and one girl just wanted to grow up to be herself - which I thought was great.

Miss Tami had to call Clay's name 3 times to come get his diploma because he was busy visiting with his buddy Xander (on the right). His special award that he received was the "Helper" award and Miss Tami talked about how Clay is always helping to pick things up even if he didn't get them out. Levi mumbled "He doesn't do that at home !" but I reminded him that Clay actually does that a lot at home. He is always putting his brothers' backpacks and shoes up for them. I thought it was a well-deserved award for Clay.

After graduation, we got a notebook full of Clay's drawings and other activities as well as a photo album with pictures of Clay throughout the school year. One of the activities was a fill in the blank about Daddy - similar to the one he filled out on Mother's Day for me. Here are his answers to that one:

My Dad is 100 years old.

My dad is the strongest when he picks up wood.

My dad likes to make pizza

My dad always says, "Go to bed !"

My dad is funny when he talks on the phone in his underwear.

(Daddy doesn't usually talk on the phone in his underwear - it happened one time when he was changing clothes and his phone rang, but apparently it made a big impression on Clay !)

Overall, graduation was pretty fun and most importantly Clay had a good time.