Somewhere

Somewhere in the world people are working behind desks…typing away at emails and memos and listening in on conference calls…

Teachers are working on last minute preparations before their students come back…

Clerks at Wal-Mart are standing over the self checkout registers, waiting to press the OK button when someone removes their bag from the bagging station too quickly...

Technical people are working on the next big IT release...

Greeters at Costco are busy highlighting the receipts of the exiting guests, even though they don't exactly know why...

Construction workers are building roads that will eventually be called toll roads that will cost us more money...

(Notice how I unintentionally turned that into a little vent. It felt good. )...

The point is: It’s just another Wednesday for most. But not in Ms. Patty’s class!

Today in Ms. Patty’s class it's COSTUME DAY! And ICE CREAM SUNDAE DAY!

COSTUMES and SUNDAES!!! We should all be so lucky.

Hayden was Wolverine, for those of you not up-to-speed on X-Men.

He insisted we call him Jimmy when in costume. Wolverine’s real name is James, but they called him Jimmy as a kid.

His Dad fixed his hair, using gobs of gel and a blow dryer. Lots of compliments were received walking into the building.

But before we left that morning, the entire family argued over how far Wolverine's hair wings should stick out.

Hayden insisted they should be sticking out a measure equal to his pinky finger.

I insisted that the length of his pinky finger was exactly how far they were sticking out.

The argument ceased after I found a picture on Google of Hugh Jackman in character to prove my point (thank you Internet!).
Then the world was right again.

After Hayden agreed that the hairdo was appropriate he made the tough decision to not wear his headphones (for the DVD) on the way to school. Beauty over function, people!

Sort Of Related: It is down to the final count-down in the Pre-K room. One more week and the students are off to the real world elementary school. I can’t help but think that the atmosphere in Room 18 is some what reminiscent of my final days in high school.

You know the days, right?

When anything goes and nothing matters anymore.

What are they going to do to me? I’ve already been accepted to college!

Hayden is in that mode now. Last week, he was caught smuggling toys into school in his underwear and even wearing forbidden flip flops (gasp!).

Now, he’s slacking on his class assignments too. Yesterday a picture was sent home in his cubby. I paid close attention to it, because I noticed that all of his classmate’s assignments were hanging on the wall upon entering the classroom. I wondered why Hayden’s was not on display.

And then I realized why.

On the assignment the students were asked to draw a picture related to the book they had just read, The Enormous Crocodile, by Roald Dahl. At the top of the page, the student was supposed to write their name. Then they were to tell the teacher about the picture and she would scribe their cute, little words onto the bottom of the paper, verbatim.

I noticed Hayden had drawn a great picture, but had only written the first two letters of his name at the top of the page...'HA'... Not typical since he has really perfected this skill over the last year.

At the bottom of the page, the teacher had written his cute, little manipulative words verbatim, “The Enormous Crocodile snapped the rest of my letters.”

And believe it or not, in that moment, I was a little proud of my Kindergarten bound child. Yet another confirmation that he is my child. Already outsmarting the teacher and looking for the loop-hole.

Watch out, Taylor Elementary!

Also Sort Of Related: Don't fret about Davis being left out of the COSTUME DAY! thing. He benefits being the youngest child, you know. Since he cries so loud, he was granted the authority to wear a costume today as well. He went with the Transformer unitard, paired with Spiderman gloves and Converse shoes. It was actually the second dress-up day for him this month.

Previously, a note on his classroom door announced the good news. "There have been many requests for a pajama day, so we have declared Friday as a pajama day", the sign read.

I found it rather kind of the teachers not mention the fact that the "many requests" all came from a single student with a one-track mind. Davis is nothing if not persistent. Notice how he even took it upon himself to turn that opportunity into a pajama-slash-costume day.