Last Saturday was our work day. We have one every year, always on the last Saturday of May. This year, however, all of the ladies from our church were away at a ladies retreat over the weekend. So all of their husbands wanted to come out and help at the work day because we were cooking three real meals for them, which is apparently better than they would have gotten at home. But, since all the dads were working; and all the moms were away, someone was needed to watch the little ones. And the lucky winner was....ME.
I got gifted with all the little 2-7 year olds and Kaitlin got the 8-12 year olds.
If little bits are good for anything - they're good for amusing qoutes!
We started the day by making cookies for the coffee breaks. I had the different ingredients already mixed and the kiddos just had to help me mixed the wet, the dry and chocolate chips together. Then they made a huge mess of the table, benches, the floor, the cookie trays and themselves while having a great time forming it all into cookies.
One little tike, Jordan, couldn't seem to stay put. It took him less time than it takes me to tell it to escape the dining hall and disappear. So after he got really lost and it took me about 5 minutes to find him, I decided that enough was enough. I hooked my horse's lead rope to his belt loop and tied the other end to the table leg. I plunked him down on the bench and told him to make cookies. It worked out great. It also traumatized a poor little three year old. "Mommy", she said, lower lip wavering, "don't ever run away from Miss Laurel! She will tie you to the table!!" Oops.
Afterwards we raked all the leaves from last fall together, tied all twelve children together to walk them all down to dump their leaves in the village composter, played for a half an hour in the playground and then ate lunch.
Coming back up from cleaning reeds out of the lake after lunch, I yelled "Come on kiddos, time to head back up!" Sweet little four year old Trevor pipes up: "Nu, uh! You got that wrong. You are the tiddo! I am the adult here!" Yeah, sure you are!
Later that afternoon, I broke his poor little heart. We had run out of "real" jobs for the little bits to do. So we went to our last resource - picking dandilions. I got a box and told the kids we were going to fill it with dandilion heads. Well, didn't that cause an uproar among the little boys! "We're going to RIP off their heads and stuff them in a box! Ha Ha!"
Well, as we picked, Trevor just kept getting sadder and sadder. Eventually he wandered off to over by where the tractor was parked and started plucking heads up. Pretty soon his mother came by and asked him if he was ready to go and take a nap. "No" he pouted as he looked out across the field of yellow, "we have to pick all of the dandilions before we're allowed to stop. Miss Laurel said. So I'm starting over here and I'll work my way across."
"Do you like picking dandilions?"
"No" he sniffed. The poor child thought I'd asked him to pick the entire field bare! His little face just lit up when his mama told him he could go swing for a minute before heading to the trailer for a nap.
Missing you,
Laurella
We painted handrails into the night yesterday, as the almost last step. :)
