We’ve enjoyed summer and are in the crazy last days of complete insanity. I am moving from room to room cleaning up legos, beads, making beds, putting away clothes to turn around and it’s like the opposite of Mary Poppins. Everything I just put away magically ends up on the floor in worse condition than before. I’m in la la land. Help! If you are wondering why I don’t have my children do these chores- the answer is “I do.” And, we are still in some crazy place of stuff every where. I am really really looking forward to the normal life of kids in school. It means I will actually clean something and my little els won’t destroy it (at least until they get home) and they will probably have so much homework and be so exhausted that they will only have enough energy to eat and go to bed for the first week. A girl can dream.

To prepare for this year’s intense workload in 4th grade, we met with Bakri’s teachers yesterday. It was amazing and hopeful and wonderful. We are really excited about this year for him and praying every single day that he will make a close friend at school. In having conversation with his teachers they wanted to learn more about him. His interests, likes, learning style, etc. He sang part of a song and we told them how much he loves playing the piano, writing music and about a project he did in second grade. His project was to tell about his family in any creative way that he wanted to. He wrote a song and we recorded it and recorded a music video to go along with it. It is called “Our Family Song.” We watched it a few times yesterday. The Els commented that there are a few things that are incorrect in the song, like when it says “we don’t fight in our family!” Um, ok, people, these are goals and hopes. It also has very accurate things like “we run around in our family!” So there!

So, in honor of school starting, here is Our Family Song by Bakri El-Hakam, written at age 7.