Even More School Fun

It was another doubly exciting school day for the girls, with Julia's kindergarten class moving onto "B" day with bubbles.  Kids could bring in their very own bubbles from home if they chose to, which  OF COURSE Julia did, and we even had a few minutes to blow some in the driveway before climbing into the car for our drive in:

JULIA: Madeleine!  Stop POPPING them!
(Because they wouldn't pop on their own once they float into the fence or land on the driveway, right??)

Although Madeleine lamented the fact that she didn't get to bring bubbles to her school, she had her own excitement in store for her, as the preschool was treated to a visit from a traveling farm.  After we had dropped off Julia, I told Madeleine what would be awaiting her at preschool.

MADELEINE: Why is it not BUBBLE DAY for me today?
ME: Well, you have something special happening at school too.  You have a visit from the farm!
MADELEINE: Farm day!  So Mama.  Today is BUBBLE DAY for Julia, but it's FARM DAY for me.
ME: That's right!
MADELEINE: Mama?  Wouldn't it be GREAT if I could have my very own horse that I can ride home from school every day?
ME: Uh, yeah, that would be great.
MADELEINE: Yeah.  Because...riding horses is so FUN!

Says the child who has never actually ridden a horse in her life.

I was expecting to hear ALL ABOUT the farm when I picked Madeleine up from school later in the day, but though I suspect she had a great time with all the animals, she seems to have wiped the whole experience from her memory.

ME: Madeleine, how was the farm??
MADELEINE: Um...good.
ME: Tell me all about it!  What did you do?
MADELEINE: Um...we made an ART PROJECT, and...we had some SNACK, and we had some JUICE, and...we had MEETING TIME!

Great job describing a regular old preschool day, Madeleine.  You left out the BIG GLARING detail about the farm animals being there today though.

Similarly, when Daddy got home from work today, Madeleine again demonstrated her farm animal amnesia.

ME: Madeleine!  Can you tell Daddy all about the special thing you got to do at school today?
MADELEINE: (face crumpling and tears filling her eyes) Uh, Mama, can you TELL ME, because I don't KNOOOOOW!

I was able to glean from her, at least, that she got to have her dream come true and ride a pony, although it was a big disappointment that she couldn't actually ride the pony home like she had planned.

ME: So, Madeleine, did you get to ride on the horse?
MADELEINE: Um...YES!
ME: You lucky girl!  Just like you were saying on the way to school!  Remember, you were hoping you could ride a horse?
MADELEINE: (lip drooping) Well Mama.  I didn't get to KEEP the horse.  I wanted it to be MY horse so I could...so I could...so I could ride it HOME from school.
ME: Oh.  Well, you know what?  A horse couldn't really live at our house as a pet. Horses need to live on farms, because they need LOTS of space to run around in.
MADELEINE: Well Mama.  I know that horses love to run around in the WOODS.

Okay.  She convinced me.  Let's get a horse so it can clomp around through our back woods.

Speaking of, we had friends Jovina, Wyatt and Quinn over this weekend for a dinner play-date with their parents, and all five kids enjoyed playing in the back woods.  Because the mosquitoes were out, I sprayed all the children with bug spray.  Madeleine, who traipsed through patches of poison ivy TWICE with no repercussions, managed to be the only kid to sustain mosquito bites, in spite of the bug spray.  It's no fun for any of us when Madeleine gets bitten, because she always has a really extreme reaction to mosquito bites, swelling up over half her leg or arm to the point that I actually took her in to the doctor last year to make sure she hadn't been bitten by something more serious.  Nope, just turns out Madeleine is more allergic than most to the mosquito saliva than your average human is, so Benadryl and hydrocortisone become our good friends whenever she gets bitten.

As the bites swelled up to make big red welts all over her arms and legs by this afternoon, Madeleine took to hobbling around because her poor swollen-with-bites legs were hurting so much.

ME: Oh, poor honey.  Come on in here and I'll put some more cream on your bites.
MADELEINE: Mama, I don't fink I need some cream.
ME: It's medicine cream.  It will help with the itching.
MADELEINE: (very serious) Mama.  I fink I need CRUTCHES.

I don't fink that will be necessary.  In fact, some ibuprofin helped her get back into a chipper mood this afternoon, and I think some Benadryl this evening will quell the itching.  I do fink, however, that Madeleine might want to think twice about her dream of riding a horse around in the mosquito-infested back woods.  Maybe she can just have her own Bubble Day instead.