Jingle Bells Santa Smells I scratched myself inappropriately during the song...

Today was the Christmas party at preschool. Oh 4 year old preschool. As Mike was engaged in mandatory training at Travis AFB, my Dad went with me and served as official photographer. Thanks Dad! Having you there was very handy for the gingerbread house building and for an extra set of eyes and hands to keep Katie and Jessica contained once the buffet was set out.

I blame their bad behavior on the penguin cupcakes. Those little plastic penguins on top were actual plastic rings you can wear on your fingers. It was too much for them to stand.
The kids had practiced a poem and two songs to perform for their adult guests. Jessica the German Nazi pointed out to the teacher as soon as they all lined up that "we will be doing the poem first, then jingle bells, THEN Rudolph right?" The teacher kindly said "yes Jessica you are right. That is the correct order." Jessica then turned to the little boy next to her and said "See??? I told you we weren't doing Rudolph first!" This all went down while all the other kids were silent, waiting for the signal from the teacher to begin. Yep, that's my kid. In kindergarten I ran around during the Thanksgiving play saying every kid's lines because I was positive they would forget and I had memorized the whole play. Mike did stuff like that too. We were both obnoxious know-it-alls. Thank goodness that has changed. Whew.

Then, during Rudolph, Katie had a little mis-step. First, you must realize that Katie marches to a totally different tune than anyone else in the room - any room. As they were performing, she was looking out the window watching cars go by, twirling her hair, dancing the little dance they made up to the wrong song. I wanted to yell "Katie! Look Alive! Jingle Bells has a dance...Rudolph has hand motions! Get your head in the game!" But I didn't. So she had her hands on top of her head as "antlers" while she danced the dance that went to Jingle Bells. She never took her hands off her head as she looked up at the ceiling and made some face that I couldn't figure out. All of a sudden around "won't you guide my sleigh tonight" she remembered she was in the middle of performing so she lifted her skirt, scratched her twinkle and picked up the hand motions with all the other kids. She managed to make it in time to "you'll go down in history" (it's the big finish don't you know?) and then curtsied to the crowd. At first, I wanted to die. Then, I started to laugh because it's just so Katie. Had she kept time and didn't spaz out I would have actually died of shock.

It was a fun party and the food was great. Most of all, I am so thankful to our teachers who devote countless hours beyond what they get paid to do, in order to make preschool a magical, fun learning environment for my girls. Seriously, just the time it takes to clean up all the glitter makes me want to get down and kiss their feet. Thank you to teachers everywhere! Notice all of the kids at attention and notice mine in the back of the group? Merry Hyper Christmas!