<p>lindz: I love picturing the scene in your pool. My three are very close too but DS has always wished for a brother. I may have already told you all this but in 1st grade he started lobbying pretty heavily for his dad and I to give him one. When I pointed out that a) it would be going on 2 years min before said baby could play with him and
b) It just might be another sister, he looked at me in total seriousness and asked, “Well can’t we just find one that needs a home?”</p>
<p>HMW yes…that is exactly the sort of hook I was referring to. </p>
<p>cpeltz: If your high school denies your boy the right to walk let us know and we will start a letter writing campaign. That is ridiculous and tell me how many high school aged boys don’t exert unsatisfactory effort ( weirdo syntax but you get my drift)</p>
<p>history twin report! all went well. No canine urinary accidents or profanities :D</p>
<p>Besodes U’s are very subjective. they did not even give S or you or whatever at D’s school. Reports were sent on good/bad. it seems to get petty.
i do not think my situation will resolve soon, I have to have surgery end of June. I am having trouble focusing on grad party am determined to follow through. any suggestions for food? I have ordered wraps, potatoe salad, fruit plate, but just don’t seem to focused. I will count on your comments for getting D ready for school. There are other threads on this as well.</p>
<p>HM, congrats on the positive reports for your D’s!</p>
<p>S’s school has over 2,500 kids, and there may be some who order tassels, etc., but the administration just doesn’t seem organized enough to notify the students which tassles/medals they would be eligible to wear.</p>
<p>Thanks for the support on the U’s=no walkie situation. My gut says S is nervous about it but that it won’t be an issue, and if it IS, they’ll see the ever-frightening wrath of a mother bear protecting her cub.</p>
<p>HMW, how 'bout a big gold earring for a piratical nod? I got S1 some pirate bandanas at Walmart…it may be out of season now, but perhaps worth a shot? A party store might have them, too. We also have a large, lovely pirate hat here at home. You can tell that Talk Like a Pirate Day was a big event here!</p>
<p>Neither of my kids wanted to join NHS. Didn’t have time for yet more community service hours above what had already been submitted and felt it wasn’t worth the hoops they’d have to jump through. Oh well. I was always a joiner.</p>
<p>Here the graduates wear the school colors; guys in one color, girls in the other. S2 said he’s not even sure that IB diploma kids get a stole or cords. He’ll get cords for 250+ hours of community service, though. S1 did not get any cords from his school. There is a big emphasis in this system on being as egalitarian as possible. No vals, no sals, no public recognition of magnet/IB students. etc.</p>
<p>historymom: hurray for no cr*p – out of D’s mouth or dog’s back end!</p>
<p>historymom, yay! And I’m glad the dog didn’t swear and neither daughter . . . oh, wait, never mind. Hooray for the historygirls.</p>
<p>Hooray, too, for missypie’s Texas Scholar! Yeah, he did okay. ;)</p>
<p>lindz, loved that word picture. You cheered me right up.</p>
<p>And CountingDown, arrrrrr matey, a giant hoop might be just the thing. Now you’ve got me thinking. </p>
<p>Our public school does the same thing - girls in white, guys in maroon. I believe elsewhere on these boards I’ve noted that this forces the girls to wear something nice (the white is pretty see-through), while the boys compete to see who can get away with the least, if it’s as hot as it almost always is.</p>
<p>missypie, do you know I found a place online that sells graduation medallions for $5? Glad your son got his very own medallion.</p>
<p>cpeltz, our largest city high school has over 2500 students (2700-2800?), and I’m sure they won’t be out-stoled, out-tasseled or out-corded by the smaller high schools (son’s school has 2000 students). But, hey, they ** are ** out-scholarshiped by our smaller high school, thanks to the creative use of the term “scholarship” as already noted, I suspect! As our school likes to proclaim, its seniors won more scholarship money than any other high school in the city. Older s went to a different high school, and it seems as if this high school isn’t very organized about notifying kids and parents about what the embellishments are and how much they are (not every kid has the cash on hand to just pay for these things when they suddenly appear one day for sale). For some things there is notice of where and when and maybe how much they are (honor societies other than NHS and Key Club), but for other things, no (NHS stoles, honor stoles/tassels, performing arts cords). </p>
<p>Don’t get me started about NHS…both sons joined, and it seemed a waste of time, particularly for this second son. This son’s NHS scholarship custom seems particularly strange. Like many on CC note, I don’t think NHS made a bit of difference in his college applications. Are any colleges really impressed by NHS?</p>
<p>Made it through D’s graduation tonight without too many sniffles. With 450+ kids to march across the stage its hard to get too emotional. It was much more fun outside the auditorium with D and her friends goofing around and trying to make a pyramid. They’re off to the all-night party, so I expect a grumpy D when we next see her.</p>
<p>Her 2000+ urban high school did have honor cords and stoles. Her group was all wearing honor stoles and proudly called themselves geeks. Next week is our party so I’m planning on turning my full attention onto it starting this weekend. </p>
<p>Good luck to all of you who are still looking ahead to graduations and parties.</p>
<p>Not too much bling at Son’s graduation. Colored stoles for summa cum laude, magna cum laude and cum laude (top 5%, 10%, and 15%), NHS collars, and silver cords for AP Scholars.</p>
<p>Finally, the baccalaureate is tomorrow night and was more special at least 7!! years ago when D graduated HS than the graduation exercise. She will miss it but arrive late and be here for the actual graduation. Family dinner with not much liked SIL but will get through. I do not like this kind of ceremony much so am pinching self to remember that it is important to S. They have a senior “scream” where they run through the halls and disrupt classes. I asked him if he did scream and he said “a little” mostly he was uncomfortable.</p>
<p>Gee, S earned this bling, but there needs to be some notification from the school I’d think. Do the kids at your schools all just go wild and order whatever they think they want/earned???</p>
<p>Our school allowed the kids to decorate as long as they didn’t have the leaning tower of Pizza. You get the picture. It was great because D2 helped D1 and we were able to see where they were as they marched into the football field. There were some funny ones and some poignant ones like one of my D2 best friend’s who put pictures of her and her dad who had passed away several years ago. Another one put a CD box of the movie Prestige…He wanted to graduate with Prestige. Fun and cute. Lots of personal touches so that families and friends could pick them out of the crowd of 600+</p>
<p>We also used to have two colors for guys and girls until the gay guys and girls started wearing the alternate color. The School board was not to happy about this and made all gowns the same color.</p>
<p>Grad party is Sunday and I have been a little short tempered with everyone. Yard and gardens are in order but house cleaning behind schedule…as usual. Will tackle food prep tomorrow. D2 still having finals and has a physics final on Monday, the last day for seniors. How cruel is that!!! </p>
<p>Bling: There is a cord for NHS, a stole for honors grads. The stole has bars for honors, high honors and highest honors. The Val gets a special stole. All robes are same color.</p>
<p>Last night was Fine Arts Academy graduation – a separate ceremony for 60 kids who completed extra coursework/performances in theater, choir, dance, orchestra, band or visual arts. It was a lovely ceremony with slide show of 4 years, great speaker, lots of humor, pride and personal recognition for a really impressive group of kids. Each grad recieved a nice medallion with school logo and engraved with name (spelled correctly!) and specialty. I can’t get over how really nice it was for parents and kids.</p>
<p>Tonight is “real” graduation with a page full of instructions about things the kids cannot do and a warning that even parents’ purses will be “visually inspected.” Oh well, big urban school graduating at big events center. I wonder how long it will take to read 350 names?</p>
<p>Bling: Fine Arts medallion, Trustees medallion for maintaining top 10% for 4 years and NHS cord. No other bling traditions here.</p>
<p>Mortarboard hint: Son and many friends found that the one-size fits all cap was too small for their heads and/or hairdos. This one came with elastic in the back and it sproinged off several big-headed kids during baccalaureate. I ended up taking S’s apart to remove the elastic and glued it all back together. Much better.</p>
Hooray for the historygirls.</p>