Four times two

Wednesday was the first early release day of the school year. School ends seventy-five minutes earlier. Before taking the boys to piano class, Nicole took the kittens to the vet this morning. Raven already has all of her adult teeth, but Rookie still has several milk teeth. I don't know what that means.

Lydia's teacher found her an oboe, which she brought home today, but we need to get her some reeds. Nicole worked on that today, too. I haven't seen the instrument yet, but Lydia described it to me while we were at the Back to School Bash this evening.

I walked home after my last meeting, wearing my mask the whole way because air quality here has once again drifted into the unhealthy, or at least irritating, zone. When I stepped outside this morning it smelled like a campfire. I think wildfires are involved, but there was also a building fire in Pioneer Square.

Instead of going straight home, I stopped at the elementary school, where Nicole was manning the read-athon table for the Back to School Bash. She hadn't brought any of the kids with her, so I went home to get the boys. I told Lydia and Rachel that we were going, and they wanted to come along, so we left the cats alone. Rachel quickly tired of the event, though, and returned home first. I left just before six, but the others stayed later.

I got the TV set up to watch the FIBA Women's World Cup, and tuned into the game between Puerto Rico and Bosnia & Herzegovina. The latter includes last year's WNBA MVP, Jonquel Jones, but she was fresh off an airplane following the WNBA Finals, and not at her best, and Puerto Rico won easily. Then the other Team USA played Belgium, and also won easily, though Belgium managed some good runs. We'd like to watch the France versus Australia game, since both teams include Storm players, but it won't start until 3:30 in our morning, prime time in Sydney.

Nicole signed Eric up for soccer today. He would have had practice tonight except it was cancelled due to air quality. Lydia has been placed on a school ultimate frisbee team that will practice on Monday and Wednesday. We still have to see how soccer turns out, tomorrow. I don't know if schedules will allow her to do both.

The principal sent an email this evening announcing that Coe will be following the district's recommendation and ending year-ahead math. They have good reasons for this, as far as I can tell, and they are adding opportunities for acceleration in middle and high school, which is good. The weird consequence is that Colin will be repeating fourth grade math, although apparently with a different curriculum. His standardized test scores suggest he learned it pretty well the first time, so it will be interesting to see how this goes.