Kids, friends, stings, and toys

Ok so I struggled as to what to call this post but I have a lot to catch you up on. First, Kindergarten continues to be amusing and thought provoking. I realized how white I was when on Friday the kids were talking to each other and they turned to me and said, "Mrs Leppard do the Po Po take in kids." I had no idea what they were talking about. For those of you as ignorant as me the Po Po is a term for the police and not a good one. My little 5 year olds are already afraid of the Police and hide from them becuase they think they Police are out to get them. How sad is that?!? I now know what the Po Po is and I even researched the term. It comes from the bike cops in CA who have the letters PO on their shirts and always travel in pairs. I have also found that the kids slip into slang when they talk at lunch and say stuff like, "Him was saying I stupid." or "Her be yelling at me." If they are talking with just me they tend to not use the pronouns the same way. It is so intriguing.

But there is more to tell than kindergarten. The last few weekends we spent trying to get the house and yard finished and looking like a home. We both hate weeding so I was putting down a weed matt. This takes forever and I did most of it as Ben's work hours are still quite long. He did get home to help me one night and started watering the plants. The next thing I know he is yelping and running as he hit a yellow jacket nest. Only one managed to get him but it got him four times before he could kill it. I was so relieved it wasn't me getting stung which is not the most noble attitude but I have never claimed to be brave. In fact while it was still stinging him I was running!! We then spent a whole weekend using home remedies to kill off the yellow jackets. Our efforts worked and I spend most of this Saturday finishing my yard. Here is a picture of the notorious yellow jacket nest - it is the seemingly harmless bush on the left.


We had a house warming party last weekend to show off our house and thank our friends who helped us so much when we moved here. I made way too much food as usual. I have pictures of the house on our Mac site. web.mac.com/leppardb


Then Monday night my good friend Janet and her fiancee Graeme came to stay. We hadn't seen each other in 10 years so we had A LOT to talk about. It was so nice to hear the Kiwi accent again and to catch up on life. I took Thursday off to play with Janet and we explored Norfolk together. She loves cats like me so here she is with me and the cat, obviously a self shot.



Janet and Graeme




A cobblestone street in Norfolk


My artsy shot of the day


FINALLY the big news of today is Ben and I just bought my dream Nikon and all the accessories I could ever want. I found it on Craigslist - yes I know I am on that too much. A man bought it three months ago and now decides he doesn't like photography. I couldn't believe the deal we got. So be prepared for many many more photographs.



I think that about catches you up on the last two weeks. I am sure I will have more Kindergarten adventures for you shortly.

Kindergarten Capers

Wow!!! That is the word for a day like today. It started off well enough with the sweet faced little ones coming through the door and doing exactly what they should do. I am testing them outside in the hall one at a time to see where they are academically. Believe it or not this takes a long time. I start through my pile of students when I get interrupted by the teacher. One darling has put a bead up his nose and can't get it out. Off we go to the nurse who prods and pries and pulls it out. When asked why he stuck a bead up his nose, he shrugs. Although when the bead came out and landed on the floor he quickly grabbed it and was quite disappointed that it had to be thrown away. I think he was trying to take the bead home and thought his nose was a good way to get it there.

Then came lunch time. Our smallest little boy is so adorable you want to pick him up and put him in your pocket. That is until you spend time with him. He is devious, mean and basically a spoiled brat. At lunch he decided to play "your momma". You know, "your momma is stupid fat and ugly". He has been doing this all week and obviously it makes his friends mad. He did it at lunch and I told him to move to a different seat. Now I guess this must have seemed a horrendous punishment. He proceeded to fall on the floor kicking and screaming and then wrapped himself around my legs. I picked him up and carried him to the seat. He then made himself throw up. I just held him over the trash can let him throw up and put him back on the seat. The way I see it I won that fight.

Lunch is not over as one sweet little boy begins to cry that he misses his mommy. I ask if he is sick and he says no. I take the class out to recess and he stays inside with the teacher. When I get back in, she tells me he pooped his pants. Back I go to the nurses office. On the way, I ask him if he had and accident and he says, "I got poop on my shoe." I ask anywhere else and he says, "In my underpants.". The truth comes out. He had been sitting in it for about an hour so our room now had a great aroma. At the nurses office I go to leave him and he starts crying, "What they going to do to me?" After being reassured that he was only going to get clean clothes I leave and go back to the room.

I started testing again and hear out small devil child having another temper tantrum in the room. I walk in and the teacher is furious and he almost managed to pull her on the ground. We don't really have a principal so there is no where to send him. Another teacher's aide comes in and comforts him and is all sweet because she is suckered in by his cute face. He calmly walks outside with her. After school she proceeds to give me advice on how to deal with him. I just looked at her and said until you have been in the crazy room you can't give advice, that kids is bad news.

I am tired of bodily fluids and am serious thinking that middle school is not a bad place to teach. But then as we walk down the hall a little boy says to me. "Mrs. Leppard my shoes are hurting my feet." I say, "Do you want me to tie them more loosely?" He says, "Oh no, they are too tight because my feet grew last night. I ate too much dinner and my feet grew too big for my shoes." I asked him to show me how much his feet had grown and holds up his hands a foot apart. You can't beat the crazy things they say and believe. Now if they could just keep their bodily fluids to themselves and maybe pay attention for longer than 3 seconds.

Weekends in Virginia

Here is a run down on our last two weekends here. First the weather has been so much nicer. It is still hot and humid but in a nice tropical vacation way not a dying in a furnace way. With lofty goals of getting all our to-do list done we tackeled Labor Day Weekend, but it was not to be. We hit a pothole Saturday and Ben spent two days on the side of the road trying to fix the truck and getting into a right mess. He gave up Monday night and we got it fixed at a shop. We took one day of the weekend to go to the beach with friends. It was great weather and our first dip in the warm, yes warm, Atlantic Ocean.

Ben working on the truck

Ben after he finished working on the truck.

Our picnic at the beach.

The Atlantic Ocean:).


This last weekend we did all the rest of the items on the to-do list that failed to get done due to the truck. We did get VIP passes from Ben's boss to the air show. It was great as we got special access to the show(across the runway), special up close parking, a free buffet meal with all the food and drinks we could eat, and front row seats. Sheesh it is nice to know people in high places. We didn't get to see the Blue Angels but there were some cool old planes and nice jets. It ended with a glider coming down with fireworks on its wings. They played classical music while the glider did silent loops in the night sky.

Back to Kindergarten

Last week I started my new job as a Kindergarten Assistant. The kids were not here last week so I spent my time feeling incredibly grateful not to be the teacher in charge - the school is in transition so therefore chaos. I also felt a bit useless with a five-year degree making photocopies. But.... when I get to walk out of that school at 3pm and not have a single piece of work to take home, I know I made the right choice.

So this week has been much much more interesting. The kids arrived Tuesday and we made it the whole day with no tears. It is quite the transition going from Middle School Science to Kindergarten. It can be boring mentally but they make up for it with the things they do and say.

One looked at me yesterday from the top of my head down to my shoes and then says, "Ms. Leppard, I do not like your outfit at all." I think I heard that in middle school too but with different intent behind it. I wasn't wearing pink so how could my darling Kindergarten girl like my outfit.

They start asking for lunch time while they are still eating breakfast and start asking if it is time to go home pretty much as soon as they walk through the door. "Is it bus time, Ms Leppard?"

Another one was talking baby talk and a girl says to him, "Why you speak English like that?"

A group of them wanted to know what my real name was because they are sure that no one could actually be Ms. Leppard. They think I made it up.

My favorite story is from yesterday. A little boy had a tummy ache all day. We took him to the nurse but they sent him back just before lunch. I am left alone with them at lunch. I am supposed to model good eating but believe me I do not sit and eat. I spend my time opening all the packaging their lunches are wrapped up in, wiping up spills, yelling at them to sit down, stopping one from licking another, telling them to not touch another persons food ect. The little sick one sat down and drank his whole juice box. Then he began to throw it right back up. But he didn't know what was happening so he jumped up and ran down the aisle with vomit juice flying out of his mouth. It would have made a great home video with 150 little kids watching him run up the aisles waving his arms, screaming and vomiting all at the same time. Poor little fellow wasn't sure what was going on. Luckily the kids were also clueless. One of them said to me, "Why he have stuff coming out his mouth?"

Tomorrow is Friday and I am not sure who needs it more the teacher I work with or the little kids so tired of "learning". It broke my heart when one asked how many more days of school there were, I was thinking "If you only knew".