You know, today when I was getting ready to leave to go to the school – I was asked to come in right at the start of the day – I made sure to pack my camera, double-checked that my card was in the camera and not in my card reader, tossed an extra pair of charged batteries in my purse, and headed off, ready to take pictures of Hayley in her Kindergarten class.

I totally forgot to take a single picture. I never even thought of it until I was walking up to the front door after coming home.

The bad part is that I don’t have any pictures to look at, to share with Hayley, to remember. The good part is that it just means that I was too busy having a freakin’ blast to think of my camera. (This is why I need a camera attached to my head which takes photos every two minutes.)

I seriously enjoyed my morning in Kindergarten. It was so much fun to watch what Hayley does every morning after she gets dropped off. They have a set routine of where to put things, what order their routine is, how they get their morning started, and I loved seeing it. I joined in on their circle time and sang songs with them (the teacher started to giggle when she saw that I was singing along because it showed that Hayley sings them repeatedly at home), introduced myself, and then got to read them a Thanksgiving story. I was shocked at how easy it was to hold the attention of 19 young kids as I read about how three turkey plotted to escape the farm before Thanksgiving dinner. We even got to join the other Kindergarten class for a little culture lesson, where a student who is Sikh and his mother explained in easy terms about their beliefs and showed how he gets his hair done every morning (apparently a lot of kids kept mistaking him for a girl with his long hair up in a bun with the piece of cloth over it, so that inspired the mini lesson) and it was great.

Eventually we set about doing what I was originally invited in for, and I helped the teacher with the smoothies. They were delicious and since most of the kids opted for the strawberry-banana mix, the teacher and I ended up splitting almost an entire blender full of raspberry-banana smoothies. That’s more milk than I’ve had in years. I’m totally making some at home as soon as we get more bananas and raspberries. Yum!

They had their drinks during snack time and then they started working on their Thanksgiving turkey craft until recess. I helped some of the kids out and my god they are so cute. For one moment of insanity I wondered why I had never considered being an early childhood educator. Then I remembered I would probably end up crying in the bathroom, and the moment passed.

Hayley’s turkey that she brought home

Hayley was really sad when I had to leave at recess to come home but she said that she was okay once she started playing with some of the kids outside. I could see her through the fence as I left the school (though she didn’t notice me) and I could see her playing with a few girls so I knew she was okay.

I definitely want to go back again. I love the teacher* and the kids are great.

*I knew I could get along just fine with her when she joked that she would put some vodka in our smoothies. Someone who can joke about that without worrying about whether that would offend someone is my kind of person.