More Birthday

The birthday celebrations continue . . .

Today, Annie brought her birthday treat, cider and donut holes, to preschool. As the mom of the honored birthday child, I was invited to come and "do snack" with the class after watching them sing to her, etc. I was there for maybe 15 minutes, and just watching the 2 teachers try to wrangle 14 kids made me exhausted.

When I got there, they were singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" in a circle. Absolutely nobody was doing the correct motions (Annie was staring off into space and practicing holding up three fingers; Ben was bounding into the middle of the circle every 45 seconds, doing a handstand, and then rolling on the ground with glee until one of the teachers made him go back to his spot on the circle). Then, they sang Happy Brithday to Annie, during which she looked at the ground.

They Purelled, and then made their way over to the snack tables, where an immediate chorus of "I want more juice" began before anyone had even finished it. One teacher went around, refilling cider, while the other one redirected everyone who was trying to travel around the room with their donut holes. When they had finally finished eating, drinking, and throwing away their cups (this took another full 5 minutes), they lined up to go outside to the playground. Jemma and I hung at the back of the line as they went down the stairs - slowly, tediously, forgetting to hold on to the railing - and I marvelled that preschool teachers do their jobs so well for so little pay and recognition. Also, I seriously reconsidered going back to teaching any time soon. I'm just not sure I have the energy for it anymore.

Today is Jason's birthday, too. Happy 32, cute husband! We're not doing much beyond having a quiet night together, eating take-out and sharing some good Belgian beer. I can hardly believe I knew him back when he was turning 22! I'm so thankful that we still laugh together just as much; I think we're good at keeping each other young.