May 22, 2023

First and Last

This morning, snuggled together in bed, I asked Soren if he could stay little forever.  No, he wants to get bigger, and have bigger feet and grow up, he said.  I told him I didn't want him to grow up and move away, but he reassured me by saying that he will live in this house with us always but just get bigger clothes.

Today is his last day of his first year of school.  If that sentence boggles your mind, imagine how boggled mine is knowing my baby went from this
to this in a matter of months.  He doesn't look so different, but I see it in other ways.
Inches grown, pounds gained, letters learned and written, numbers counted, and three haircuts later, he leaves behind that first difficult month of tears, as well as those other eight months of smiles.
I know he's going to miss school and his wonderful teachers, but I honestly think I'm going to miss it more!  These Tuesday and Thursday mornings have been blissful.

His teachers really have worked hard to create a positive learning environment and experience for the kids.  From the Mother's Day brunch and tea, complete with adorable singing and handmade gifts from the kids
to the deluge of craft projects stuffed in their backpacks to the fact that my baby can write his name and I had nothing to do with it!  They're simply amazing.

What do you give a teacher to show your appreciation, short of a massage gift certificate and a comfy reclining chair?  I made up a simple teacher gift for them that I found via Pinterest.
One is for a teacher, the other for the aide.  Mine didn't look as pretty as the ones above, mostly because I had trouble finding nice cups at the last minute.  I got mine from Target, along with the other supplies.
Also my photos suck.  I hate taking shots at night under the kitchen lights, but that's usually when I work.

For the gifts, I bought
insulated drink cup | gift card for a bookstore |instant lemonade packs | lemon-themed pens and lemon sticky note pad (from Target dollar section) | chocolate!! | yellow gift bags | ribbon

Assembly was easy. Just stick everything inside the cup while sneaking a piece of chocolate for yourself.
Once the lid was in place, I cut out little pennants from cardstock and wrote a note on them, as copied from Lisa Storm's blog.
For the aide: "thank you for being a great "ade" to the class!" and for the teacher "thank you for quenching my thirst for knowledge".  Cheesy, but fitting for this gift.  I debated writing something like "this is the last straw!! love, Soren" or "you certainly made lemonade out of my lemons, love Soren" but I didn't think that left the teachers with a positive image of my son. :)

I slid the paper onto the straw and taped it closed.
A cute and practical gift, rather than more kitschy junk to decorate the classroom.  Hopefully they can use this throughout the summer at the pool or on the beach.

Slip the cups into a gift bag, add a card and ribbon and you're done.  I drew some cardstock lemon slices as name tags for the gifts which Soren colored.  He also made a card for inside, the sentiments of which he dictated to me.
Here's hoping this last day of pre-school turns into a pretty spectacular first day of summer for us. 

4 comments:

  1. Those are beautiful gifts for the teachers. I'm sure they'll be very thankful for the gesture!!

    He definitely has grown, I can see a difference. If only they could stay little forever.... sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, you are so awesome! And SoJo is really losing his baby-ness. Yikes! Jasper has completely lost his. It's wistful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Who says those aren't as good as the ones on Pinterest?! I personally think they're even BETTER :)

    What a very cute and sweet thing to do! It's nice to let teachers and aids know they are truly appreciated, even if it's only a little something.

    And man did he grow up! I can totally see the difference in the two pictures o.O

    ReplyDelete
  4. SUPER cute!! Good job! And thanks for stopping by my blog and leaving a sweet comment on my Strawberry Lemonade Mix post : )

    ReplyDelete

Feed the Comment Monster!
(sorry, anonymous comments are currently disabled due to the amount of spam comments received)

Related Posts with Thumbnails