School Daze and A Certain Bear's Never Ending Birthday Season

I'm at a low ebb where school is concerned.

Logic and past experience tell me that this is the result of the usual frenzy of activity at the end of the school year when the entire staff realizes that they have only a few short weeks to jam in the three months of stuff that still needs doing.  Meanwhile, even as the adults kick it into high gear, the students have decided that it's springtime and their done with school (except for the fun stuff like movies and pizza parties).  I can sympathize with their point of view, but this attitude shift comes about just as we're in the midst of prepping for the all-important (sigh) State Testing.  Right now, I can definitively state that my students could care less about the difference between a simile and a metaphor, how to correctly punctuate an introductory phrase, or what makes a fable a fable.  And as their interest in school wanes, classroom and playground behavior takes a steep nosedive into the first stages of chaos and anarchy.

I comfort myself by repeatedly reminding myself that this happens every year at this time and that this year isn't really any worse than any other year (every year always feels like the very worst it's ever been).  Other than that, I just do my best to keep smiling and maintain a positive attitude - I can't very well ask my students to do this if I won't at least try to do it myself.  Still...I'm mighty relieved that today is Friday...

...Meanwhile, back at the pond, Bruce's birthday season continues at full-tilt.

Bunny ears courtesy of Mama

The soufflé  

Bruce has been into learning how to make soufflés lately.  He got a copper soufflé bowl for beating egg whites from Mama at Christmas and a soufflé dish from his mom for his birthday.  Last Sunday morning he whipped up the second soufflé of his life for our breakfast.  It was, in a word, sublime.

I think that the bear on the apron should be wearing an apron with a picture of Bruce  on it

Yesterday I picked up not one, but two packages for Bruce from the post office.  From daughter Chelsea, he got an apron with an amazing likeness of himself on the front and from an old high school chum, a hilarious tote made out of a recycled hen-scratch bag.  He also beat me into the dust in not one, but two games of Mancala.  Will this Birthday Season never end?????