What the heck is a clap-out and why don't we have one?

Just saw someone on Facebook post photos of their daughter's "clap-out" at elementary school. Excuse me? What's a clap-out? I imagined all the kids walking out of elementary school and everyone clapping on their way out.

So I Googled it, and I was right. The oldest grade parades out of school on their last day and everyone applauds. I read about moms breaking down at their kids' clap-out. I read about moms THINKING about their kids' clap-out and breaking down. And I suddenly got emotional too.

I cannot believe that we are done with elementary school. Yeah yeah, I only have two kids, but it's gone by so fast. There's no graduation in our school district... no pomp and circumstance, no caps and gowns, no moving up day to the middle school for outgoing fourth graders last week. I suddenly found myself desperately wanting a clap-out, to celebrate my beautiful daughter's accomplishments. I love graduations. I'd cry even if it was the graduation of people I didn't know.

Of course, I'm still proud of the girl. She has a great head on her shoulders. She's confident, smart, funny and a loyal friend. To me, and to her brother, to the husband, to her friends and to everyone. My graduation gift to her? I will regret this for the next, um, forever, but it was her very own Facebook account. A mistake? Probably. I have panic attacks about it constantly. But she's thrilled: It makes her feel grown up for some reason, and she earned it. I'm so happy for her.

But I'll be pissed if I find out that the school district starts doing clap-outs for the fourth graders next year.

An uphill battle

Lost 20 lbs so far!
Yeah!
That was purely from diet change.
Now, I've plateaued.
Have to start going to the gym regularly.
Sigh.
The question is, join the ultra-hip, very popular gym in town, with the state-of-the-art equipment, plethora of group classes, pool, personal trainers, weigh-ins, people from town that I don't want watching me, crazy-high initiation fee, and ridiculous monthly fee,
or,
Use the gym at work, which is conveniently just beneath my office, with people I work with that I don't want watching me, no initiation fee, and free.
Which am I more likely to keep up?
I won three personal training sessions at the really nice gym, and have been going every week. Now it's over. Have to figure out what to do.

A rite of passage

Took the boy to the school district art show at the high school today. Art from all grades were featured. The boy is taking art as an elective and as a "cycle" class this quarter, so he had some work featured there. Some really impressive stuff from kids in town!

We then went food shopping. I was thrilled that the boy was really chatty. I was taken by surprise when he asked me to buy all of the following:

1. Toothpaste
2. Mouthwash
3. Tooth whitening pre-rinse
4. Razors
5. Shaving cream

Sniff. The first razor. OK OK maybe not as significant as the first tooth or the first shoes or the first steps. But!! My baby boy needs a shave!!!

What else not to do on a spring day.

Would you believe I spent ANOTHER beautiful spring day indoors? Getting re-certified for CPR, in preparation for the girl's camping trip in a few weeks. My luck: it will pour the whole camping weekend.

What not to do on a spring day.

Not sure how this happened, but I'm spending this beautiful first day of spring upgrading all of our computers to use different virus software (since our provider will stop offering the previous software in a few weeks), and also upgrading all of my 100+ blogs (because blogger will stop offering FTP in a few weeks). Blech to both... taking up the whole day.