Pronuncations and Perceptions

Driving home from school today Eli asked Moses questions about his day. He has been struggling with recess and lunch time. Problems encountered with recess include loneliness, boredom and the hot sun. It's easy to see your problems magnified when their analyzed. He sulks in the shade and feels sad. Once Sunny showed up at his recess-unfortunatley this was because she lost track of time, didn't hear the bell ring and spent some time with Moses. This made his day. He reported he was so happy to see her but felt so sad when she had to go. He was all alone. Tears came in his eyes. Cafeteria dilemmas include: too many people, a general feeling of chaotic commotion and it doesn's smell good in there. He is his father's son. No Christenson in their right mind would turn their nose up at cafeteria food-we are the ones known to visit the town hospital to visit the "restaurant" there-and that is what we call a treat. Each day recess and lunch are the low points of his day. Then lunch and recess have to happen. Mrs. Hunter makes him feel safe and loved, there is organization and fun games to play. But today great things happened. Moses made friends with Angelo at recess. He is so funny and so crazy! They laugh and play fun games together and he had hot lunch for the first time and loved it: waffles, sausage and chocolate milk-maybe that makes the smell tolerable. Eli checked in with Carolina while she read her Box Car children book looking up to show us the 1/3 portion of the book she had already read. He asked her if she hads made any new friends. Silence. Asked again. "What?" She was busy reading, we dropped it. Walking to the park last night we reached the intersection where the kids are well trained (most of the time) to wait until slow Mommy and Rainbow in arms catch up to cross together. Carolina tagged with me and told me of the book she is reading. Benny had found a clue and they were already at the Blue Bay...(Box Car Children Blue Bay mystery). I delight in her joy reading the series, I loved them when I was young. She told me, "They are are on an 'is-land' " Her reading prowess made known through pronunciation. Tonight I checked in on her as I could still hear her mulling about the room when the others had zonked out. She had a piece of tarp like fabric spread out near the heater register, three bent curtain rods, a pile of beads, rope caulk tape mangled into a ball of funtional gray clay and several clay forms: a duck complete with breathing nostrils above the beak, a snail, a whale which was smaller than the snail and a few sharpened and unsharpened pencils. Obviously, she had undergone a surgical procedure to extract carelessly dropped beads from the heater's cavity and found inspiration in that resurrection and was forced to create by the divine powers within by whatever inspired materials she could accumulate. This could not wait until morning, the magic would inevitably be gone. I could take a lesson from this girl. Stuck to her bed was one more creation: a clay sign with writing etched. I couldn't decipher the writing yet. She told me it says, "Sunny's caf." I thought I heard her wrong and asked, "A baby cow?" "No, you know the food place..., a restaurant." "Oh, cafe!" I can tell she has been reading an awful lot.