Events of the day
Each day is full of small events. Many times these small events don’t even make it onto my adult radar. Small events don’t seem to matter much…unless you’re a small person. I have four small people. To them today was special.
Patches had a turn with stomach flu today. I learned that he is the politest sick kid I’ve ever seen. Several times today I came to check on him. He would be playing quietly and tell me he was fine. Then as an aside he would mention that he’d thrown up into his pot. I’d check and sure enough, the pot needed washing. He is only 3. When Link was three, he would run away from the pot screaming because he believed that somehow the pot made him throw up. Despite being sick, Patches played quietly and watched movies for most of the day. He did need some extra snuggles and a nap. Once again I realized what a wonderful sweet kid he is. Extra hugs are in order.
Gleek had a rough day at school. She was inclined to be weepy all day. She expressed this by lingering behind in the hall when her class went to the computer lab. Her teacher found her there and escorted her back to the classroom where she had to sit quietly and miss computers. On the way home from school Gleek told me about this sadly because it will be a whole week before she’ll get to go to computers again. I sympathized out loud and was quietly glad that she is unlikely to pull that particular stunt again. She was also very sad because her friend R told secrets to a classmate, but not to Gleek. I really wanted to scoop her up and snuggle her, but unfortunately I was also toting Patches and his pot, so that logistics were tricky. The rest of the day was better for her because she got to play at a friend’s house and hold some puppies. Warm furry animals have a magic to them. I got to hold one of the puppies too.
Link got new black tennis shoes today. They are the first pair of brand new shoes he has had in more than two years. We’ve all been wearing lots of hand me downs. We’ll continue to wear mostly hand me downs, but we can now sprinkle a few new things in. Link was very pleased with his shoes. He wore them all afternoon. He happily demonstrated their stomping capabiblites. He loves the little toy that came with the shoes. It’s a little action figure which apparently is used to advertise this particular brand of shoe. It’s one of these guys. Personally I find a severed toe action figure rather disturbing, but Link likes it. He really likes that it has magnets on it’s feet thus can stand sideways on the fridge or other metal surfaces. Kiki and Link spent an hour carefully cutting all the pictures of these action figures off of the box the shoes came in.
Kiki got to go to school an hour early today. She had a pile of make up work to turn in and had to get it there in enough time for the teacher to submit final grades before the deadline. She worked hard to get it all done and I loved seeing the satisfaction on her face. She also loved the chance to just hang out with her teacher and be a before school helper.
But the biggest event of the day was our annual pumpkin carving. We managed to grow four pumpkins this year, so each of the kids got one. They each had fun using the little carving tools to make faces. I love that they’re mostly old enough to do the work themselves. I remember when pumpkin carving meant that I had to do all the carving while the kids watched or wandered away at will. So we have our row of Jack-o-lanterns. And we’re ready for tomorrow which will contain large events along with the inevitable small ones.