Pomp and Circumstance

After 5 1/2 years at daycare (costing us about $60,000, which makes me want to vomit until I pass out, but we got about a $300 tax credit per year, so that makes it almost OK), Chad is finally moving on. His little graduation ceremony took place in early June.

This is the same dress I wore to my college graduation. So now I have to see how many graduations I can wear it to.

PopPop came down to surprise him!

Walking in

Luckily, we got seats right in front of him, without even knowing where he would be sitting.

He told me he wasn't nervous, but he looked a little strange up there, and wouldn't make eye contact with us.

The details of the ceremony were kept top secret from us beforehand. Chad's role was to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance

He took his flag, and said, "Please stand," to the audience, they said the pledge, and then the little girl next to him said, "Please sit." Some classroom gossip is that when they were in the 3s, Chad "married" the other color guard, which meant that they were able to dance together. Don't tell TMZ, but Chad later confessed that he married her because "they'd been together for a long time," but when he got older he planned to marry the little blond girl at the other end of the front row. That little girl is very smiley, but had a potty-related accident when I visited for Thanksgiving lunch. It is wise for Chad to wait to marry her until she improves her bladder control.

This was during the "A is for apple, ah, ah, apple, B is for boy, buh buh boy" song. They then counted 1-20 in English and 1-10 in Spanish.

Next was the site word recitation. Chad is spelling, "With. W-I-T-H."

Then there were flowers presented to the parents. This got a little chaotic. Children were announced in pairs to go give out flowers, but some got too excited and went early. Also, those yellow sashes were falling off everyone when they were walking.

After he got his diploma.

The diploma 

They ended the ceremony with some choreography, destined to be a YouTube sensation:

I have no idea what this song is, but if you know, can you please tell me? 

Los tres amigos

Cool moms let their kids choose their own cowboy boots for graduations. I was busy having heart palpitations because Chad had outgrown his black dress shows and was wearing sneakers with his suit. Ergo, Stacey is much much cooler than me.

Getting ready for the hat toss

Wheeeee!

Afterwards we went to Bojangles for lunch, where Chad got a free lemonade for looking so cute in his cap and gown. Then he and Andy went fishing, and for dinner we all hit up Tomato Jake's.

You'd think I would be relieved about having one less daycare tuition to pay for, but the administration has made it very clear that once Chad leaves our, "We feel sorry for you because you got surprised with twins" discount will end, and the twins will each be full tuition. On top of that, we will now be paying for Chad's before/after care through DPS, plus his intersession camps that come along with year-round schools. Thus, it turns out that our childcare costs will actually be increasing. Three more years until the twins graduate and it finally makes financial sense for us both to work!!