Soccer, Worms, Reading and No TV

The spring soccer is mixed teams divided up on the day of the practice, with boys and girls playing together.  One of the boys on Thea's team took a direct hit from a well-kicked soccer ball right to the privates.  All the other boys erupted in laughter and Thea just looked at them and said, "I know why you think that's funny..."  I was proud of her because she walked right on to the field and started talking to the coach and told him right away, "I like playing defense better."

Right before soccer was the OLSAT test.  Poor little first-graders had to endure testing from 9:00 am to noon. The second- and third-graders just had to suffer through an hour.  Other than going to China, Egypt or Oman, I've not spent much time being a minority, but at the drop off for the test I think I saw maybe four other Caucasian parents.  Thea was pretty unperturbed by the test.  As all the other kids were being herded up the sidewalk to the school, she was stopping to pick up earthworms that were on the sidewalk from the rainstorm the previous night.  So not to be outdone by my sensitive child, I had to pick up some of the worms too to save them from being trampled.

Thea is reading the Young Reader's edition of Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, one of my all time favor books.  She has been incentivized by the promise of a reward when she's done. The good thing is seems to like the story and it's leading to good vocabulary additions:  meningitis, epilepsy, baptism, seizure, though it's a brain strain for me to get the concept of epilepsy into an explanation to fit a seven year old's frame of reference.

Thea and I are doing the Television Turn-Off week that started last Friday and goes through Thursday.  Today is the halfway mark and neither of us has touched the TV remote or our Nintendos.  After getting our passport photos done on Saturday, I let her have a look at Game Stop and she asked them to hold Pokemon Revolution (for the Wii) for her and we picked it up yesterday (she paid), and she didn't even waver about putting it in the box to be held until the reign of terror is over.