Friday, November 09, 2007

Mother's Night

Last night was Mother's Night at Claire's school. She and I went to her school, and there was a ticket (or "chickit" as Claire says) with her name and four kinds of work listed on it. She was supposed to show me three of them.

It was so enjoyable to watch her in the classroom once she got over the strangeness of all of the moms being there. She wanted to start with "advanced pouring" work, and she got a tray off the shelf, took me over to a table, and showed me how she can pour the beans back and forth from one container to the other without spilling. Then we moved onto wood polishing work. She picked up the tray, and we went back to the table. Then she took all of the stuff of the tray while we sat there. Then she looks around and says, "Now we have to find some wood to polish. Oh, we'll go over there. Push in your chair." So we got up, pushed in our chairs, and went to another shelf to get a wooden elephant statue. She showed me where it had been broken, but Miss Fatima fixed it. Then we sat down, and she carefully narrated each step of the wood polishing process.

First we put the polish in the bowl. Here are two cloths. This one is polishing and this one is shining. You use two fingers, not three. Just two. Then you polish. Like this. And now shining. Now we need more polish. Whoops, three fingers. We only use two. OK, all done. We wash out the bowl. (We went to the sink and she used the sponge to clean the small glass bowl. Then back to the table.) We put these in the basket. (Back to the sink to put the two cloths in the laundry basket.) Now we get new ones. Polishing first. (She pulls a new polishing cloth out of the drawer, and takes it back to the tray.) Now shining. (Back over to the same drawer to get a shining cloth to take back to the table.)


Then she packed everything back up, and put the elephant, and then the tray back on the shelves where they belonged.

Next up was plant washing. I learned some very useful things. "You have to be very careful. And gentle." Also, "Start from the top. Go all the way to the bottom." She spilled water all over the floor carrying her bowl back to the sink to empty it, but before she could wipe it up she had to take the towel to the basket. And get a new one. And put it on the tray. And put the plant back. And put the tray back. Then we could clean up the floor.

It made me so happy to see how secure she feels in her classroom, and to watch her working so well on a variety of different tasks.

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The one big negative to the night happened before we even pulled into the parking lot. The direction we come from causes us to drive by the first church driveway to the second one to pull in. That's how we do it every morning and afternoon. Well, the traffic light at the end of the road had caused a back up, so we were past the first driveway, but not at the second one yet. A jeep that was two cars behind me, suddenly pulls into the wrong lane, and I thought for a minute that they were just going to turn into the exit so they could get to the parking lot faster. But no. That would be giving them too much credit. Instead they drove in the wrong lane past approximately 6 cars so that they could get to the entrance driveway. OK, I get that being on time is important. And that there was no oncoming traffic. But what are you teaching your kid when you break laws. That they don't need to follow the rules if it's inconvenient to them? That it's ok to put yourself and others in danger if it suits your purposes? I just don't get it. People like that make me so angry.

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