Exciting Day for Julia

Julia had a hugely exciting day yesterday, for many reasons.  For one, she was bursting with interesting news to share with her class during morning meeting.  To back up for a moment, the afternoon prior, Julia had stayed after school to play with some friends, one of whose mother was planning to bring Julia to her house for a play-date.  However, the play-date wound up lasting only about 15 minutes before I came to pick Julia up, because she and her friends had been so busy on the school playground that they stayed for nearly an hour after school.  Apparently, the girls decided, in honor of Earth Day, to go around the playground picking up trash and litter and collecting it in a big garbage bag.  According to the mom of Julia's friend, the three girls marched along singing "The Recycle Song" at full volume as they performed their good deed.  This song, set to the tune of "The More We Get Together," consists of the following lyrics:

Reduce, reuse, recycle, recycle, recycle
Reduce, reuse, recycle, it's easy to do.
For your world is my world and my world is your world
Reduce, reuse, recycle, it's easy to do!

Once the trash pick-up was complete, the three girls brought the trash bag to their cubby so that they could present it to the class at Morning Meeting Share and explain about their playground cleanup.  Furthermore, the girls have decided to form a Recycle Club, complete with matching uniforms!  Julia couldn't WAIT to share all of this with her class, because let's be honest, who WOULDN'T be delighted to present a big bag of trash to her entire class??

Beyond the fun of sharing about her Recycle Club, Julia had an EXTRA-SPECIAL Mystery Reader visit her classroom: Auntie Caitlyn!

Unfortunately, the surprise had been blown for Julia, but that didn't make it any less exciting to have Auntie Cait in her classroom. 

This is how Julia found out about the Mystery Reader ahead of time:

Scene: Julia, Auntie Shannon and Mommy are all in Julia's room to get Julia ready for bed.

ME: (to Auntie Shannon) Without saying too much, have you heard anything from anyone about whether they're sleeping over tonight?
JULIA: (desperately excited) No, I want to sleep over AUNTIE CAITLYN'S this weekend!
ME: Well, who knows, maybe Auntie Caitlyn will sleep over here.
AUNTIE SHANNON: She's definitely not coming tonight because she asked me if I could park my car at the train station for her to use tomorrow.
ME: Oh, okay.
JULIA: No, Mommy, I want to sleep THERE!
ME: Well, it could still be fun if Auntie Caitlyn sleeps over here tomorrow night.
AUNTIE SHANNON: I don't think she's going to sleep over tomorrow.  She said she needs to get right back to her apartment after Mystery Reader.
ME: (silently giving Shannon the "I'm-gonna-kill-you" look.)
SHANNON: (staring back in horror)

Dead silence, broken by:

JULIA: So, you basically just told me that AUNTIE CAITLYN is the Mystery Reader for my CLASS tomorrow?


Can't sneak anything by that hyper-observant child, gosh darn it.

AAAAANYWAY, Julia was happy as a clam to have her auntie at school, and in typical fashion acted like a completely unsocialized weirdo while Caitlyn was there.  "Can I touch your NOSE?" were the first words she spoke to Caitlyn, after being called to the head of the class to greet her aunt.  "I'm a FROG!" was another helpful comment she blurted out at random during Auntie Caitlyn's reading of "Green Wilma." At least this time she didn't loudly pronounce anybody to be named "QUAW-QUEE CLARK!" though.

Finally, to end the day, Julia had her usual Friday swim lessons, and received her progress report.  I knew it must be good when she refused to tell me anything about it and opted to simply proudly thrust the report card towards me.  Not only did she master every skill she was tested on, but she got moved up again to a higher level swim class.  Move over, Minnows, this kid is now a FISH!  (Why the YMCA names their levels after various sea creatures rather than with numbers makes the ranking all a bit confusing to me, but apparently Fish is the third-to-highest level, with Flying Fish and Shark being the two higher ranking classes.)

Julia even remembered to stay Earth-conscious as we headed into the locker room; in response to a running shower with no one in it, Julia remarked, "Gee, I guess someone really doesn't care about protecting the EARTH!"

So all in all, a good end to the week for Julia!  Although it's too bad she hadn't received her swim progress card BEFORE Mystery Reader, because then she could have CORRECTLY blurted out "I'm a FISH!" in the middle of "Green Wilma" instead.