Teacher's Pet: Daily Gratitude 5

I'm so grateful that I played school with The May Queen today.

The actual playing of school is not particularly exciting to me, but I know that ultimately the May Queen just wanted some time with her mama, something she hasn't gotten much of lately. So when we arrived home from her actual day at school and she asked if I would play school with her I glanced at my watch, did some quick calculations of what needed to be done before I left for rehearsal, and agreed.

Not only did I get some good time in with my darling daughter, but I got a real window into what she's learning at school. First she had me color a cat picture I drew last time we played school (that was stored in my old folder in my own "desk" - a priority mail box). While I did this she, as the teacher, was hard at work at her own desk. When I was done coloring I had DEAR ("Drop Everything and Read") time, like she has every day at school. I read some of the book she's reading at school. Then she handed me a math worksheet that she had created, full of addition and subtraction problems. Harder ones than she was working on just a few weeks ago. As I completed that she created a spelling worksheet... writing out sentences with misspellings. I was then to rewrite the sentences correctly. I was impressed with what she put together.

Then she broke character and whispered to me, asking if we could watch the Cats DVD we picked up at the library. I whispered back that yes, we could. And a snack? Yes.

She announced to the class (that would be me and all the lined up stuffed animals) that we had a special treat, and would get to watch a MOVIE.

I only got to watch about 25 minutes of the DVD with her before I had to pack up and head out for rehearsal. But we talked about how it was different from when we saw it live, and she asked lots of questions and we got to talk about the things we were seeing... the dancing and the makeup and the characters... in a way we couldn't in the theatre.

I often find that when I'm feeling stressed and like I have too much to do that stopping and really focusing on time with MQ seems to calm me down and put things in perspective. And it most certainly did.

So I'm grateful that I said yes. I'm grateful that my daughter wants to play with her mother. I'm grateful for the things that she's learning at her real school, and I'm grateful that I can be surprised to find her getting smarter and smarter each day. I'm grateful for my sister in law, who sent her a box full of school supplies that inspired her to play school regularly. Most of all, I'm grateful to be the mother of this incredible little girl. I am indeed her student. Every day.