wherein i applaud the fine work of our educational systems

bella has *intersession* this week.where she now goes to school year-round, their breaks are longer than the *normal kids*. next week is official fall break and this week they had the option of attending a special *theme week* at school, in lieu of just playing around the house and getting into mischief. of course i'm a hands-on kind of mom, and immediately asked where i could sign up for THAT, yes that. some of that, please.

heh.

so their theme week is all about water. monday, she got to go to the ripleys aquarium in gatlinburg. it was kind of a big deal, considering its 2 hours away. and for the past month, that's all we've heard about. what i found hilarious, tho, was when our kids all rolled up in their big fancy charter buses at the end of the day, the first thing you heard from 60 little voices had nothing to do with water or how cool the shark tanks were. instead, it was:

MOM. they had tv's on the bus! with the disney channel.

score one for education there.

what i surmised from bella's descriptive recount on the way home, was that the bus also had a bathroom and, oh yah, at the aquarium, jim made the *call me* sign to the diver in the tank and she made the *come here* sign with her finger crooked like this and so he did and then she blew him a kiss. also, on the way back home, she and carlos got into a discussion about nursing sharks being bigger than their heads which was obviously so funny and i just didn't get it.

tuesday, they got to go on a pretend *desert trek* in search of water. they also learned the importance of water conservation and began building their own wishing wells. bella came home with an assignment to write down how many things she did last night that were water related. what foods she ate, that had water in them, etc... but what bella remembers most about yesterday? that her best friend randi told everyone what color underwear she was wearing because she saw up her skirt when bella went down the slide upside down and that jim's big brother hit her on the butt with his lunchbox and she gave him a look like THIS.

so tonite, when jason called me at work to let bella say goodnight, i wondered what tall tales she'd have to share. they were scheduled to visit a large state park today and see how a water treatment plant worked and then visit a fish hatchery. unfortunately, it rained all day, so their plans were kind of, ahem, drowned out.

our conversation went down like this:

hey mama

hey baby, whatcha doin.

oh nothin. playin' with runtz. daddy's makin me go to BED. and i haven't even seen all the muppet wizard of oz. but he said he was tapin' it so we could all watch it.

well its that time, no?

:long dramatic sigh: yaaaaah. i guess.

so did you have fun today?

oh mama, it rained. so we couldn't go to the park.

yah, i saw that. i'm sorry. what'd you do instead.

welllll we watched a movie and had lunch and then we played in the gym and you know what? randi wanted to look in my lunchbox today and she saw my granola bar and asked if she could have it and i said no cuz we're not 'posed to swap but she said please and i said no but then i said it was ok, cuz mama? i kind of didn't want that anyway. but i told her only if she promises not to eat it at school and then guess what, she was eatin it right there watching the movie. yah. and it was chicken run. oh and you know what? i'm never gonna trust her again EVER with my secrets because i told her i have crush on luke and then she told EVERYBODY and then luke was running from me all day long.

why was he running from you?

cuz i was chasin him.

ahhh. well you know what would be the cool thing to do?

what

tomorrow, just act like it never even happened. like you never said such a thing. and then he'll forget all about it. and especially don't chase him.

yah. thats probably good. oh. and mama? when nana picked me up, i asked if i could have a i-dog cuz they have them at burger king, ya know it? i saw it on the commercial. and she asked me if i was hungry and i said i could probably eat. so the i-dog? it has a paper costume and his nose lights up. yah. cool, huh? and i had chicken nuggets and fries and a chocolate milk. is that ok? because actually i was kinda hungry because i had no snack for the movie cuz randi was eating my granola bar and i had a big whoppin nothin. yah, nothin. i was starved, i tell ya.

hmm. maybe you should keep your granola bar next time, yah? soooo what did you learn about water today.

uh, mama. hello? it rained. we couldn't do nothin about water. kind of a bummer, huh?