Rainy Day Trip to the Library

I had my whole day planned. Drop Sweetpea at school, get home to fold the monstrous pile of laundry and then get going on my list. The list today pretty much centered around my computer and work-related tasks, although I hoped by lunchtime I might have time to get around to a post about our weekend activities over the past few weeks.

Cue the first big storm of the season.
Sweetpea and I were blown like Mary Poppins from the car to the front door of her school, occasionally landing in puddles five inches deep and holding tight to our umbrellas as the driving rain seemed to be following the wind's cue of trying to knock us right off our feet. It was exhilarating, sort of, and every time I glanced back at Sweetpea she had a huge grin on her face like it was the adventure of a lifetime.

I crawled back home for a bracing cup of coffee and the laundry pile, completed just in time for the power to go out for the remainder of the day. We live in a neighbourhood where the slightest puff of wind knocks over our spongy electrical poles resulting in the power being out for days at a time, usually right after I've filled the refrigerator with groceries. All this to say, not one item on my LIST was accomplished today. But I did have another cup of coffee (or two) and cleaned the guinea pig's cage.





After tumbling head over heels through the rain for a second time when I picked up Sweetpea from school, I decided it was a good day for the library. We used to go religiously every three weeks for storytime and would bring home 20 or 30 books which never quite seemed enough, but since the spring our visits have been sporadic. Sweetpea is almost too old for storytime, but the children's librarian is so entertaining that I always feel like tucking money into her puppeteering smock just as a reward for keeping my kid rapt for 45 minutes.






Here's what we brought home today. We'll probably have read most of them by the weekend.

When we arrived at our house to discover that the magic of modern electricity had been returned to the neighbourhood, Sweetpea went off to her room to be creative. She doesn't get assigned homework, but pretty much every day she comes home to draw a picture or journal something she has learned. Let me state for the record that I do not request nor require her to do this, it's self-directed. I'm wondering how long this enthusiasm is going to hold out, but she certainly is an eager student for a kindergartner (remember Reese Witherspoon from Election? I'm hoping that kind of overachiever is NOT in her future, although now that I've said it...).

Currently, it's the five senses that have engaged her imagination so she pumped out this little hieroglyphic before dinner.




I see a flag.


I smell a candy cane.


I taste a cookie.


I touch a cactus (ouch).


I hear a blackbird.






What is up with this kid? English hubby and I were both average (and occasionally apathetic) public school students at best, so where did this come from in the gene pool? I guess, as my doctor once commented after congratulating me on my weirdly low blood pressure, I've "...been given a gift from (my) ancestors."

note: I was a crackerjack college student, in my own defense. I sometimes wonder if I was one of those kids that just couldn't quite get a handle on mainstream (public) education...