Friday
I'll just call today a bad driving day. On my way to
work I though that perhaps I should add a little side bar to my diary with
a stick driving diary and keep track of how many times I had stalled the
poor machine, but having stalled it three times on my drive home, I don't
think this is such a hot idea.
Today was our second full day at work, but I only got
scheduled in the afternoon shift. Shortly after I arrived, Dee and eM
took off, leaving Bee and I to watch the kids. Someone had put on Dark
Crystal, which I think is an awful movie to show with pre-kindergartners
in the room. After distributing the snack of English muffin pizzas, I
spotted one girl not watching the movie. She was playing with the
Scrabble letters, so I asked her if she wanted to play a game. Shortly
thereafter, two of the little girls declared the movie too scary. They
didn't even want to be in the room while it was playing. I know they love
to be read to, so I told Bee he could take them to the library and I would
watch everybody else. A little while after that, another little girl came
up to me. I offered to play Mancala with her. She sat at a diagonal from
me and I managed to do well playing two games at once. Soon two of the
boys wandered over. When the Scrabble girl got picked up, one of the
little boys took her place. The other immersed himself in Lincoln Logs.
The girl who was first playing Scrabble with me was one
of the older kids. We didn't play for points; we just made words until
someone couldn't go anymore. The boy who next played scrabble with me was
very young. So he got to place a word, and if he couldn't connect it to
any of the other words, he could place it elsewhere on the board. If he
couldn't find a word, he could keep drawing letters until he did. These
modified rules worked quite well and he kept surprising me with good
words. At one point he eve did the five-lettered "green" and I was very
impressed.
The two girls Bee was reading to got picked up, so he
came back in the room and plopped himself in front of the movie. When yet
another boy wandered over, looking to be entertained, I called to Bee. I
explained that I was already playing two games at once and watching the
other kids, and asked if he could entertain our newest recruit. A minute
later Bee anounced that the child wanted to wait for his mother and Bee
went back over to the movie. This kid had already declared to movie too
scary, and now sat there still watching it. I tried over an over to
distract him and get him involved in something else, and finally tore him
away from the screen.
Next another girl left the movie and wandered over to
us. I asked her if she would finish my game of Mancala for me so I could
devote myself to Scrabble. We began a new Scrabble game and the Lincoln
Logs boy joined us. He got the concept of connecting words, but not that
they couldn't lie adjacent to each other, so the board got complicated
quickly. We were having fun and I was so delighted that they were
interested in a spelling game.
I had to work to not be frustrated with Bee. He
watched the rest of the movie with the one girl who was still watching it.
I acknowledged that he had worked a full day and that he must be
exhausted. I was good and I went home happy.
