Quite a reasonable rate

We went to a birthday party today. I'm not completely sure, but I think it's quite an ex-pat thing to stay at the children's party and hang-out with other parents, surreptitiously swigging gin whilst their kids quietly throw up over the cat. In Perth, however, I heard of a friend throwing a party for their seven year-old where the parents not only dropped-off their invited child, but also additional siblings (leaving her to run down the street after the retreating 4WD with a child under each arm).

I was asked to do the face-painting. One child, possessed by an old lady, as 6-year olds generally are, observed very seriously "Goodness, you can paint birds *and* draw butterflies on faces. Gosh". Luckily, they are still only 6 or 7, so even when I painted a butterfly wing which actually resembled more of a small dog poo, but in pink, it was quite all right as long as I put glitter on afterwards. Small girls can be very forgiving in their criticism as long as there are sparkles involved.

We saw a small patch of grass today for the first time in five months. The Minnesotan equivalent of hearing the first cuckoo.

And I have just put a chicken carcass out on the garden, and already a grey fox has come down and helped me out with my recycling.

Wheeeeeee!

I went ski skating today. Like skating, but with skis and more down-hills. Bridgjo said I didn't look too fliddy, meaning, I assume, that my bum wasn't sticking out too much. At this stage in my life it's with relief I can get off a horse/take off my skates/return the hired skis/get up in the morning and think "Phew! Still alive, then...".

One of the girls from book-club was giving a group of us a lesson, and it was really nice to be out on the track in the blazing sun (ONE DEGREE CENTIGRADE!!!). I think I'll have another go next week, whilst the tracks are still open, but might try the cross-country instead.

T did the cross-country, with her skis firmly wedged between the ski-width tracks which are cut into the path for this specific purpose, and I did skate-skiing (or ski-skating, I've forgotten). This involved attempting to skate in, well, skis on a quite frozen polished surface this late in the season, with no edges. Slightly less graceful than "Dancing on Ice".

T wants to "louper l'ecole" next week and go again, though at the rate the snow is melting, we'll have to see, although I am always up for a bit of constructive skiving.

Ah yes - "home schooling" - how to have fun yet still satisfy the school inspectors....

I went to the doc's last week as I thought I had a fungus under my nail. He said it was actually psoriasis, and looked very smug when I said said that I had had psoriasis (thanks Spell Checker) before. Obviously a bit of a House moment for him.

While I was in the waiting room, there was an elderly lady who'd been dropped off by presumably her daughter, who then dropped a pen on the floor. "Oh crap" she said, in the loudest voice. She wasn't even wearing purple.

Where have all the flowers gone?

I was talking to an Australian friend the other day and she was moaning about the relentless heat they were experiencing back in Perth. She also commented, genuinely perplexed, on the fact that we didn't usually go to the beach in the evening any more. "At least the snow will be gone soon, hey?" she asked. Umm, no actually. Although we probably only get three good snow-falls or so, it all just hangs around in the sub-zero temperatures and melts in one big cascade at the end of April. Whilst everyone in the UK is smugly busy writing poetry about yellow flowers, we are struggling to remember where we last put the lawn.

T jumped into a snow-drift in the front garden on Monday, and I temporarily lost her.

We did a bit of a mini tour around Downtown and St Paul today, for the stagiaire, taking in Punch Pizza and the Truffle shop (the latter owned by a man from Leicester. We also popped into the State Capitol buildings. There was, surprisingly, no security, so we ambled around at our own pace. I was especially impressed as much with the Senate's titles, as I was with the decor. I imagine the Sergeant-at-Arms at one point actually did have a gun (or probably, even still does), but I could only assume that the Engrossing Secretary maybe was furnished with a plentiful supply of lipstick and the odd flirtatious remark.

Pay attention at the back

As if I didn't learn my lesson (hah!) last week, I was called out of retirement on Tuesday for another bout of Helping Out ie "We need a temp but can't be bothered with spending money". This time I was to lead the class (although there is a perfectly capable assistant teacher in operation who could have taken over), and to also take them in English and maths ("because Mlle X isn't very 'mathy'"....whatdya mean the assistant isn't very 'mathy'....she's a teacher. How tricky is first grade math(s)?).

Unfortunately, in the English part the original teacher was working on "rhyming with 'AN'". Yep, quite easy until you ask an American child "Spell 'fan'". "What?". "Fan". "Uh?". "Fan". "Nope, still don't get it...". " Fen?". "Oh...F-A-N?". So yep - had to put on an extremely unconvincing American accent for 3 days.

I was struck by the huge difference between their abilities - a couple could read 'daughter', 'caught' and 'draught', others struggled on 'Please put the pecan in the pan'. But more I was struck by the difference in behaviour. Some kids would just sit there and do the work and ask for more (how can I not have favourites?), whereas others, in an obvious parody of their principle caregivers, would throw their arms in the air and yell "Why the hell should I want to do that?". Hmmmm - not quite what I remember from Miss Keyes' class in Infant 1 (but then again I remember that it also involved a jam spoon).

I realised towards the end the one big lesson of being in front of 6 year-olds.

Don't show fear.