Mood Elevators Wouldn't Be As Much Fun

Even I noticed that I was MIA this time. It's not like I didn't want to blog and it's certainly not like there weren't random bloggable thoughts running through my mind. It's just that I have been busy.

You know. What with toilets and all.

Also, I managed to find myself enrolled in school again & I fear that the prof for the class might very well be the Nutrition Nazi in disguise. I think we may have a wee bit of a chip on the shoulder. I don't just teach a class about what to eat, I lecture on the finer points of biochemistry and the interaction of cells . . . blah, blah, blah.

Since this class is just a prerequisite, I just wanted the What to Eat 101 Lecture & Lab Series taught by Paula Deen. Easy A+ for me. Especially if weight gain earns me extra credit.

So, guess what? I have a mountain of nutrition reading and work to do.

And, here I am with sparkly clean toilets, freshly vacuumed floors, & empty laundry baskets sitting in front of my computer. Not doing schoolwork.

But telling you about my latest Adventures in Kindergarten.

Right after we moved to NoVa and sometime before I hooked up with the Food Poliezi, I was looking for something to do & practically begged casually mentioned that I would like to work with the Kindy Kids one day a week. So, here I am, 5 weeks into my latest volunteer assignment wondering what the heck I was thinking.

Bored? Since when is that a huge problem? Go find a toilet to scrub, an HGTV show to watch or a glass of wine that needs to be chugged sipped.

Need to make friends? Since when is Kindergarten the place to accomplish that?

Need a boost in self-esteem? Stay far, far away from small children. They tend not to have the filters that mute brutal honesty.

Last week I found myself elbow deep in scissors & glue sticks working with small groups of small kids on a flower life-cycle science/art project. Normally, this would have been right up my alley, and it was. Until a point.

Instead of cutting and gluing with proper determination & speed, the little chit-chatters were lallygagging & chattering away about birthdays & who was still 5, who was already 6, who had what party planned, what kind of cake, etc. etc.

Suddenly, it got really quiet & 5 sets of eyes were on me . . . Hey Mrs. MiniMe's Mom, how old are you?

That's it. The point where I faced the moral dilemma of either flat out lying to small children making something up at random that sounded good or telling the truth.

I thought about fudging the truth, but I couldn't decide what number to lie about. While I was flipping numbers in my mind (22? 28? 30? 35? 50?. . . 15?) it occurred to me that anything over the age of their oldest sibling was going to sound ancient, so I opted for the truth.

Besides, do they fire volunteers who lie to children? That might not pan out too well if I ever wanted to avoid more nutrition homework volunteer with first graders.

Well, Little Suzie (& all your extremely nosey little friends) I am 37.

Loud & Proud, my friends.

Wow! Mrs. MiniMe's Mom! That's really old. My mom is only 25.

My mom is only 28.

My mom is 32 and my dad is 33. You're like way older than both of them.

Yeah, I think my grandma might be 37.
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On a much lighter note, MiniMe was the Office Helper last week & thoroughly enjoyed every minute of every additional duty. She was beyond excited to wipe off the girls' table after lunch, escort classmates to & from the office/nurse's office, collect the library books and take the attendance to the office.

Bossy and prefers to be in charge? Not sure where those traits are coming from.

Anyway, she told me that the teacher takes grades on attendance. Two of kids got A's & two other kids got really, really bad grades.

Mom! They were so bad, they got T's!

For those of you not well versed in teacher-speak, A=absent & T=tardy.

I think these kids are more than ready for first grade. And, while they blaze a trail up the hallway to the first grade classrooms, I think I might just hang back with the new kindy class.

Either that, or I am totally grabbing a glass of Merlot & parking my patootie in front of FoodTV. If Paula can't raise my self-esteem, chase away boredom & be my new best friend, there's always my new dietary analysis software.