Tales from Kindergarten

The universe took pity on me. The computer wasn't damaged, the hives are going, the allergies are abating, the swine flu hasn't hit yet, and... and... drum roll... and... yesterday 5-yo got to put a drop in the Principal's bucket. It was her proudest moment, the fulfillment of her loftiest ambitions. The Principal wasn't there, but "there were some kind ladies who told me I'd done a good job".

There are three Kindergarten teachers at 5-yo's school. They are called Mr Davis, Mrs Davis, and Mrs Smith. 5-yo discovered that two of them are a married couple.

"Do you know, Mamma, two of our Kindergarten teachers are married to each other? I think it must be Mr Davis and Mrs Davis. What do you think?"

I've been warned that the playground is a more complicated place for girls than boys. We're only in week two, and already there is evidence. 5-yo was sad the other day that she didn't get much recess time. When I asked why not, she told me that she'd had to spend most of it carrying another girl's sweater, while that girl played. I asked her why she'd had to hold this girl's sweater, and she replied "she told me I had to". To add insult to injury, the girl was playing the while with Lily, who as we all know, is 5-yo's new friend.

Apart from this dip in her happiness, all seems to be going well. A highlight of her week has been Show and Share. She had to take in something her favourite colour, and have three clues to give the other children. They then had to guess what the object was. Her favourite colour for the past 5 years has been pink. Unwaveringly so. But it changed this week to yellow. The clues for her Show and Share were:

* it's stretchy

* it has things like petals on it

* it is used mostly by girls.

Having written these clues down, I realised they sounded a bit rude somehow, so I was rather glad to be in the realms of yellow, not pink.

Because I love a good blog competition, I'm going to get you all to guess what the answer is. Apart from those three clues and the colour, the only other Kindergarten requirement is that the item fits inside a backpack (so it's not an elephant, for example). No prizes, except the glow of satisfaction that you have out-performed 23 Midwestern Kindergarteners.

I was going to ask you all to become drops in my own bucket, by subscribing to my blog. So I went and activated the 'Followers' gadget, which I've recently discovered is really simple to do, and doesn't require any serious techno-wizard skills. And guess what? 35 of you are followers already. Look at you lovely people, over there on the right. Who'd have thought it? My bucket already has 35 drops. Any more out there? Go on, make me even happier.