and I have a cowboy hat

I went back to work today at the preschool. My comrade Mateffany (the other teacher and my first friend since moving here) had a wonderful story for me. She asked my little Russian boy if he celebrated Easter and he told her "No, I only celebrate Happy Birthdays." Then at lunch today out of the blue, he turns and looks at me and says "Lady" (he always calls me lady, which I LOVE!!" So he said "Lady I love M&M cookies, they are so delicious. M&M cookies. And I have a cowboy hat."

I feel....

Every morning at circle we asks the kids how they are doing. Most of the time they say "I feel happy" or something similar.  However, there are a few kids that have much better responses. One of my Italian children said he feels "happy like a clock." One little girls tells me every morning that she feels "happy like a princess." And my favorite is same child who brought us "Funkadelic with a Triple Spin", who says "I feel silly like an apple." He says this in the same matter of fact response as he states his dance moves. "I feel silly like an apple. There it is, do with it what you will." So now if you ever find yourself wondering how an apple feels, you know. They feel silly. Or if you ever feel silly, know that you are not alone. Apples feel silly too.

What does that contribute to the world?

After speaking repeatedly with my students about not using weapons and playing violent games at school one child decided instead of being a bad dragon he would be a good dragon. This is the same child that plays that he is Word Girl on a daily basis. He comes up to me and says that he is a red dragon that breaths rainbow fire with sprinkles and sparkles and hearts to say "I love you".  It made me so happy. He told me "Look at that tree" (we were inside and there are no trees) "I blew rainbow fire on it and now it is beautiful." I found his rainbow fire to be wonderful and told him so. With his confidence reinforced he went to tell another teacher of his rainbow fire breathing abilities, but sadly she tried to dampen his spirits by asking "Well what does that contribute to the world?" Undaunted he replied "It makes things beautiful" and walked away to play with this rainbow fire. I was so proud of him.  Bringing beauty to the world is a valid and worthwhile contribution.

I should learn Italian

One of my students just moved here from Italy and does not speak a word of English. She is a ridiculous amount of cute and speaks in Italian all day without any regard to the fact that no one understands a word of what she is telling them. After the girl has a conversation with her mother the mother turns to me and tells me that her daughter just told her that I need to learn Italian because I don't understand anything she tells me.

That's a good umbrella

Upon moving to Boston I was bed-less. My kind roommate lent me the mattress from her futon but after a while wanted it back since it was an integral part of her couch.  I also was lacking pillows. The Boyfriend and I decided to go to T.J. Maxx and pick up some pillows and see if we couldn't score an air mattress while we were down there. Once outside we decided that the snow was kind of nice and we should walk. It was a nice little walk (about 2 miles).  We each picked out a pillow, his Calvin Klein and mine Serta.  There were no air mattresses to be had so we walked down the road a ways and found a cool thrift store. They did not have air mattresses but they did have regular mattress in good shape and for a reasonable price. We bought one The Boyfriend proceeded to carry it on his head for that same two miles back to the house.  We passed a few dozen people and about 1 in every 8 of them made a comment on what a nice "umbrella" The Boyfriend was carrying, thinking that they were clever and original. Who would think that he had been carrying this mattress for such a distance as to have encountered the same comment (or some close variation of it) several time?  We got the mattress home, dried it off with a blow drier and then I broke it in by testing it's jump-worthiness. If you were wondering, it has great bounce and one can achieve optimal distance when jumping off of it.