If I Ran the Zoo

Oh wait, I do run this zoo... right? At least I feel like a zookeeper most days.

After three weeks of sickness, all the fever and throw up and headaches had left and on Tuesday not one child stayed home sick. They all went back to school. Then Wednesday we had a snow day and they were all home again. It was a blessing that we finally had a day off where everyone felt well, but my house seemed more zoo like than ever.

One of the things I love about Joseph and Juliana going to preschool is that they get a chance to do the type of projects I used to do with the older girls, but just don't seem to get around to doing anymore. What I dislike about preschool is that there are deadlines to projects. They missed school all last week so Monday I get a note about this Friday's zoo day and animal sleepover. The preschoolers are supposed to bring a stuffed animal to sleep over at school (easy enough). Then comes a mom's nightmare. The animals are going to have to have a place to sleep, so each student needs to make a habitat for their animal. The instructions for these projects crack me up, it's obvious this sweet teacher has never had kids and therefore never had to put together one of these projects during a week full of craziness.

 "Nothing fancy," the directions read, "it should be something the preschoolers put together on their own." Seriously, who gives four year olds free reign to paint, scissors, glue? We won't discuss the box cutter incident here. And while I have some of the smartest and most creative preschoolers (I'm not biased either), they certainly needed some help understanding habitats. Should you have an exceptional child that is able to manipulate all the necessary craft items and artistic enough to come up with their own ideas for a habitat box, do they really think these children are going to clean up the mess? These projects always always always fall to Mom. In my case, it took three older sisters, Mom, and a snow day to get it done.

Still we got them finished. I thought they turned out well. I can also tell you that the other habitats I saw were most definitely *NOT* put together by preschoolers, smart and talented as they are. Now I have to get back to restoring the three closets I destroyed this morning looking for shirts with zoo animals on them.