Preschool Surprises

Working at a preschool, special ed or not, is always fun and full of surprises. (Some surprises involve bodily fluids and are not that fun, but still...)

Here are just a couple cute quotes from our kids:

Little boy picking his nose....
Teacher: "You need to get a kleenex."
Little Boy: "No I don't, I've got my finger right here."
That's little boy logic for you.

The preschool has a new teacher this year and when last year's teacher dropped by, one of the little boys ran up to her and said, "Teacher! You're here! I thought I lost you." So cute!

And let's just say we have one little boy that aims high when he sits on the potty chair. Last week he hit an unsuspecting teacher square in the chest from across the bathroom. Luckily she had a sense of humor and a clean sweatshirt in her car!

It Just Slipped By Me

I do what I can to spread the joy and put a smile on people's faces, even at my own expense and such was the case today.

Let me preface this by saying I've been inordinately tired this week: sick girls up in the middle of the night with coughing fits and earaches, working a double shift last night (school then restaurant), and feeling like I may be coming down with whatever crud the kids have been infecting the house with for the last week and a half. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)

So, I'm walking into work at the school this morning and I'm passing all the parents who have just dropped their kids off and are heading back to their cars. I notice one gal in particular who looks like she just rolled out of bed a few minutes ago and is shuffling along in her slippers.

Here were my exact thoughts:

She looks tired...
...just like me...yawn...
...hmmm...I have some slippers just like that...
...they make that same shuffling sound...
...kind of like the sound my feet are making right now...yawn...
...wow, my feet feel especially comfy this morning...
---looking down---
HOLY FLIP! I'M STILL WEARING MY SLIPPERS!

Yes, I made a lot of people happy today by embarrassing myself at work. Like I said, I am not above sacrificing my own comfort level if it will give someone something to chuckle about for the rest of the day. Yes, today I made a lot of people smile. And it was worth it. (At least that's what I'm telling myself.)

Poor, Neglected Blog

I don't know why I've been out of the posting mood lately, but I have. I think Facebook is taking up a lot of my computer time. Facebook is so cool though. I've gotten in touch with all my good friends from childhood there. It's fun to know what they're doing day to day, and to see pictures of their families.

In other news I'm pretty sure the girls had "hog fever" ('cause we're not supposed to call it Swine Flu anymore, right?) Wow, what a nasty virus! Nat was hit the hardest and was down for a good 5 days. Both girls are still hacking and coughing. Yuck.

The cats were very supportive of Nat during her convalescence, however. They never left her side. They stayed next to her and comforted her through her fever and coughing and made sure to keep her cozy during her naps. Pretty heroic, in my opinion. (Or maybe cats just love nothing better than a warm body on the couch covered in a fleece blanket to nap on. Nah, not MY cats!)

Miss Moo has proved herself to be a true mountain girl. The other day she built a fire in the woodstove completely on her own! She knew just how to start it with the smaller pieces, open the dampers, and then add the larger wood as it got going. That's the first lesson in mountain life---keeping yourself warm. She passed. And now she can keep her mama warm too!

In other mountain life news, I still get a kick out of walking through our neighborhood and seeing all the bear sign. I've lived up here for almost 20 years and I've never seen so much bear activity in one place. We lived in far more remote areas and would see an occasional bear, but not have bears be a part of our everyday life like in this neighborhood. The difference being, when this neighborhood was built in the '30s there was a man who was a wannabe Johnny Appleseed and he planted apple trees everywhere around here. And where there's easy food, there's going to be lots of bears. The streets and alleyways here are just littered with piles of bear droppings and I just find it kind of humorous I guess that that is now a part of our normal daily life.

I recently performed at a festival in Richmond. It was pretty cool because it was in a huge auditorium and it just was neat to be on a stage that big (I don't have pictures of us performing just yet though). It did have real honest to goodness dressing rooms too. Usually the so-called dressing room is a large bathroom or supply closet, and all the performers have to share it, but here there was a dressing room for everyone. My friend and I thought the coolest thing was that there were stars on the doors, so we couldn't help taking our pictures in front of them so we could brag that we got the "star treatment"!

Madly Scientific

With Moo gone to a birthday party, I had Nat all to myself. We just recently got a slimy science kit from Scholastic, so she wanted to do an experiment.

First we put a layer of corn syrup (colored red),

then some blobs of baking soda, then a layer of water, and finally a layer of oil. Just that was pretty cool, then we started with the fun stuff, adding vinegar (colored blue).

First just dropping some and watching it turn into blobs between the water and oil, then pushing through to the baking soda for bubbling action. It was really neat to play with.

We're going to do it again when Moo gets home. It was cool to hear Nat say, "I'm smart!" and "I like science!" All through school science was boring for me, but we only did book learning. I think hands on experiments definitely make the difference!

And for my sister, an obligatory kitten picture: