This is Why Dog is Man's Best Friend!!!

Tizzy: O.K. Doggie – You can be white and I will be black.

Doggie: Arf – but, I wanted to be black.

Tizzy: You can't be black. Only 5 years-olds can be black.

Doggie: Oh please, please, please, can I be black?

Tizzy: No! Only T's can be black.

Doggie: Doggie starts with T!

T come's prancing into the kitchen...

Tizzy: Mom? Does Doggie start with T?

Me: Duh-Duh-Deee.... Doggie starts with D...

Runs back in the other room.

Tizzy: Nope. Doggie starts with D – Sorry.

Doggie: Argh-rar-rar...

Time passes...

Tizzy: Hey Doggie. I jumped you. You need to King me.

Doggie: Rahr.

More time passes...

Doggie: Ruff. Well Tizzy, looks like you won!

Tizzy comes running to me...

Tizzy: I won by a triple jump!

Me: You did? What did Doggie have to say about that?

Tizzy: What could he say? I won!

I Always Feel Like, Somebody's Watching Me...

The house was quiet, everyone was asleep, and I heard a strange noise that drew me to the window — Horror movie style.

Not seeing anything I sat back down, but still felt as if I was being watched.

In the spring, in my quest to garden, I purchased an egg sack of Praying Mantids. They were advertised as fabulous organic insecticides, if you could keep them alive. As I was leaving the store one of the men working behind the counter said, "Beware. They're like the Highlander. They're incredibly territorial and will eat one another until there's not a single one left."

Unfortunately, when they hatch, they're also incredibly small. I saw one, about the size of my pinky nail, climb under a lavendar bush at the beginning of summer, and have seen not a trace of one since. I'd assumed my purchase was an eight dollar loss.

Until tonight.

Sure that I was being watched, my eyes skimmed the window once more. Sandwiched between the office refleted glass and the dusty old sceen was this:

Row, Row, Row Your Boat...

What do you do while your five-year-old's in Kindergarten, and your three-year-old wants to go fishing?

You turn over a picnic table, attach a line to a folded up calendar, hand him an oar, and send him to Sea!

Ships Ahoy!!!

***

They upgraded to a fishing boat once T got home...

The Way We Do Things In Kindergarten

Today, I spent the wee hours of the morning at the ER with Zip. Asthma. He’s fine. It’s an old story, but I woke up tired after only three hours of sleep.

I got Tizzy ready for school this morning thinking, “Wow! This shirt and shorts will be great for ‘Green’ day!”

I didn’t look at the calendar.

I went to pick Tizzy up, and it was clearly not lost on him that today was “Red” day, and that I hadn’t dressed him appropriately. Looking around, it was apparent that I was the only parent who’d forgotten to check the calendar.

School — Grrrrr!

“Raspberries are red!” Tizzy announced.

“Poppy and I are the same.” He continued. “We don’t like raspberries.”

I’d secretly hoped that maybe Poppy’s mom had forgotten to send her to school in red, too.

“Kids were saying, ‘I like raspberries, and you like raspberries! Let’s be friends!’ That’s not a very nice thing to say, Mom.”

“Was it making the kids who don’t like raspberries sad?”

Tizzy rolled his eyes.

“No. I sa-aaaid, ‘I like raspberries, and yooo-oou like raspberries! Let’s be friends!!!’ Tha-aat’s not nice. My teacher said so.”

“Right. Because it made the kids who don’t like raspberries feel left out. Right?”

“Sheesh mom! You’re not listening!! I said, ‘I like raspberries, you like raspberries, let’s be friends is not nice, Mom!!! You’re not paying attention! My teacher said kids don’t like that. When everyone said that, she said, ‘NO!’”

“O.K.” I said. “Try and explain to me why that’s not nice.”

“Because it’s not, Mom.”

“But, to who? The kids who like raspberries, or the kids who don’t?”

“I don’t know. Someone."