I have to admit, though I won’t do it very loudly, that mornings like this remind me of how grateful I am not to have a commute any more. Snow. Freezing temps. Icy driveway and roads. Skies the same color gray as the slush on the ground. And, a car parked outside because my old classroom stuff has been in my space in the garage since I resigned in May. (It’s too cold to do anything with all of that stuff now!)
This morning, I was greeted at the door by Abby, Bill, and their friend Mike, who so helpfully agreed to fix a stuck flush valve (I think that's what it's called) in one of our toilets. Luckily, the job didn’t require disassembling the whole tank or even placing a special order for a hard to find part. Bill and Mike were able to find the part they need at Menards and had the toilet in working order all in about an hour. What a relief! (Pardon the pun) They always say that you should know a good plumber!
While Bill and Mike were working a la commode, Shawn and Abby were in the process of waking up. Though they were both up and moving around, neither seemed very awake. However, Shawn was tickled pink when Abby offered to hold his sippy cup for him while he leisurely sipped his morning cup of milk. Should have caught that on camera… sorry.
Bill and Mike finished in plenty of time for us to prepare the troops for Spanish Class. Today’s lesson was about big (grande) and small (pequeño). Diego had small rubber spiders with which we acted out a Spanish version of The Itsy Bitsy Spider (La Araña Pequeña). That happens to be one of Shawn’s favorite tunes right now, so it really caught his attention. Since we acted it out with motions and props, Abby was also quite the happy girl. Then, Diego brought out a big spider puppet and had it crawl over the kids as we practiced naming things like shoe, hand, head, nose… he got lots of giggles and a couple of squirms. Abby wasn’t a big fan of the spider, but she still smiled and giggled as she scooted away from it. Snack time had the kids choose between big and little goldfish crackers. Shawn was beside himself that Lynn and Abby were served before him. Doing his best to combine Spanish sounds, English words, and even a little sign language, he almost shed a tear when Diego didn’t get to him fast enough. He certainly had his lower lip quivering and stuck out so that Lynn’s mom even made a whimpering “Awww!” on his behalf. After we cleaned up our ‘pezes’ and ‘aqua’ and put our ‘platos’ in the ‘basura,’ we made art projects. Continuing the theme of The Itsy Bitsy Spider, we made spiders out of crayons, paper plates, googly eyes, and eight strips of black paper. It was a little more of a challenge than what either Shawn or Abby were up for, but with a little team work, Diego and I helped them complete their masterpieces. We ended class with a new nursery rhyme, See You Tomorrow (Hasta Mañana). The lyrics were printed on a large poster and as individual take-home handouts. I’ve listened to it online outside of class. Still, I haven’t gotten the hang of it. It feels like there are an awful lot of syllables to pronounce in only a few beats! I definitely get tongue tied. Our last nursery rhyme, Stir, Stir, Chocolate (Bate, Bate, Chocolate) was much easier to learn - and articulate! Aside from learning a foreign language, sometimes moments like these give me a little insight to how Shawn and Abby must feel when they can understand what we say to them, but don’t know how to reply.
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. Lunch. Stories. Nap. Play. Then it was time for Abby to go home. Bill actually had the chance to hear Shawn ramble a little this afternoon. Normally, he gets very timid and barely utters a sound. Bill even got a, “Bye-bye, Abby-Dadda!” as they headed out the door.
(Still haven’t actually used the basket I brought downstairs yesterday… at least not for finishing the laundry!)
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