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Wednesday, May 06, 2015

School lunch and chicks

It's teacher appreciation week at our school so it's been a bit of a crazy busy week. Somehow or another I've managed to be room parent for the past three years so I'm involved in these things whether I want to be or not. Not that I mind appreciating teachers...it's just that some people get way more into appreciating teachers than I do and therefore this week has been a little crazy. I'm happy I'm not the one organizing everything!

Today I took Benjamin and Miriam in for lunch hour so I could help supervise the lunch room (so that the teachers could go to the lunch hosted by the PTA). They were super excited to go, especially Miriam who is desperately longing to go to kindergarten. She got dressed in her Duke shirt and then dug out Benjamin's Duke shirt as well, so they were quite matchy-matchy.

Volunteering at the school is rather nice now that we've been here for a couple of years because we know kids in a lot more classes and they were all excited to see us (kids from Rachel's class last year's who were divided into all the classes this year as well as kids from church) and it was fun to see them. I wasn't sure if I would see Rachel because she couldn't remember when her lunch hour was when I asked her so I took a stab in the dark and signed up one of the three hours—but it was the hour she had lunch so we lucked out.

And she was wearing her Duke shirt, too!

When she saw her little brother and sister were matching her she rolled her eyes and said, "Seriously?"

That pesky little Miriam, always trying to coordinate everyone's outfits! Rachel was a little embarrassed to be dressed exactly the same as her siblings, but she joined them at the special tables for students with "company," along with a friend, and they had a fun little lunch together.



The lunch room was quite chaotic at the beginning of our shift when the kindergarten classes were still eating, but by the end when the older classes were there, things were much less calm. Far few milk cartons were overturned, no one asked for help opening any packages, and the cacophonous atmosphere of the cafeteria diminished greatly.

When I volunteer again I'll definitely sign up for the later shifts...except that Miriam will be in the earliest lunch shift and Rachel will still be in the middle one so that might not be quite fair. Hmmm...

We ran into Rachel's teacher from last year who invited us to stop by his room to admire the recent hatchlings—this year they have ducklings in addition to chicks. The class was out for recess so we had the room to ourselves and I took terrible quality cell phone pictures to document Miriam and Benjamin's excitement.


The ducklings hatched a while ago, so they're already getting big. Benjamin declared that they were the "mommy chicks," while the chicken-chicks, who hatched yesterday and today, he called "baby chicks."

This picture was taken right after he touched the heat lamp to see if it was actually hot (it was; that's why he's hiding his hand behind his back (it's also why it's called a heat lamp)). The chicks were so tiny and new and...a little bit boring. Instead of running around and playing like the ducklings were they were all huddled under the heat lamp crying.


The ducks were definitely more fun to play with.



Before we left we peeped in the incubator and watched a chick break out of its shell—or almost break out of its shell.



It still hadn't managed to get its little eggshell hat off by the time we decided to call it a day. It kept bouncing around, trying to get the blasted shell off, and then settling down to rest for a minute before hopping up and trying some more. Poor thing.


Being born is hard work! It was so nice of this little chick to remind me of that fact when we're on our final countdown to delivery day. 

Now to gear up for another crazy day at school tomorrow. This time we'll be decorating doors...

3 comments:

  1. Looks like a fun time! I'm trying to imagine how I would have felt if my younger siblings showed up at my school dressed like me...hmmm. :) Love Rachel's face!

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  2. This year Emmy's room mom planned something for each kid to do every day of teacher appreciation week! It was over the top if you ask me, and made me feel like a bad mom for not sending the teacher a favorite drink on Thursday as well as wearing green on Monday, bringing a cookie recipe on Tuesday, sending a treat in Wednesday and giving a gift on Friday! It was just too much for me to handle!

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    1. Don't feel like a bad mom. That is a lot! Our week was busy, too, but I didn't add anything on top of what the PTA planned...except for asking the kids to make a handprint...because what the PTA planned was almost too much for me to handle! ;)

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