Shi-Tzu

While waiting in the hall outside of the kindergarten room, I waited for a little girl to complete a series of questions asked by the kindergarten teacher. As I stood in the hall I listened intently to hear the questions and answers. The shy little girl was unusually talkative that day, and she was adding much more to the conversation than simple answers to the direct questions asked by the teacher. When the little girl told the teacher that Panda knocked coloring books and drawings down from the refrigerator, the teacher became curious. She began asking questions since Panda is an unusual name for any pet.

The teacher asked the little girl if Panda was a dog. She said, "No, Panda is our cat, but we have a dog. He is a Shi-Tzu." The little girl unnaturally drew out the word Shi-Tzu, and I breathed a sigh of relief when she finished - until her next comment. She then informed the teacher that he shit all over the house! All I could do was blurt out, Alyssa! I was laughing so hard. She said it in all seriousness. I couldn't stop chuckling to myself. The teacher was smiling when I entered the room after the interview. I told her she could probably write a book on the funny things kindergartners say, but she went on with the discussion as if nothing had happened.

And how was your day?

Why can't you keep a secret?

Everyone at some point has told a child a secret in the hopes that they will keep it just that...a secret. In my case, I did something that a child witnessed and had no idea this child would spill the beans.

One afternoon, while babysitting my precious niece, I decided that we would go fishing. Earlier in the day, I had drank a couple of energy drinks followed by a diet pepsi. Now everyone knows that there are usually no restroom facilities out in the middle of nowhere; not even a porta potty, especially when you need one.

At the end of our trip, after holding it for several hours, I just couldn't hold it anymore. While nobody was looking (or I thought no one was looking) I crouched behind a vehicle and did my business. Around the corner comes that sweet innocent niece of mine; taking one look at me and then screaming "Aunt Heather, you are supposed to go pee pee in the potty!" I tried explaining to her that sometime you just have to go where you can but she just didn't understand.

Of course my fiance' comes running because he thinks there is something wrong. By this time I was done but not in time for me to get my pants up before he could see what I was doing. Even if I did get my pants up in time, my niece started blabbing once she saw him.

I didn't think about it again. Well, until my sister called. She explained to me that my niece had just gone to the bathroom outside. I tried to act surprised but that didn't work. She then proceeded to tell me that my niece's response to her outside bathroom inquiry was "But, Aunt Heather said you just go where you can!"

I wanna make a .....

I work with pre-schoolers for a couple of hours every afternoon. It's always a nice stress reliever after working with school age children all day.


We do alot of art projects because it is the end of the day and it is a nice way to wind the kids down. I've been helping these little pre-K preciouses create collages. They find pictures of toys they like to play with or toys they want, food they like to eat, pictures of animals, and pictures of clothes. After they find all the pictures, we paste them on construction picture. The children love making collages and especially love hanging them in the classroom for others to see.


On this particular day, I was helping a child make a collage. All the other children were playing in different centers. It was really quiet in the room, when suddenly a little girl runs over and says..."Hey! I wanna make a camoflague!"


I laughed so hard for a couple of minutes and then another child said, "Camoflague? That's what my dad wears to go hunting. Are you going hunting?...pause...You can make clothes?" Oh lord how I love the minds of little ones!

Suddenly all the children wanted to make their own clothing. Have you ever set a group of 4 and 5 year olds down and explained to them the difference between camoflague and collage? Yeah, it doesn't matter how you go about it, they still don't understand.

For now though, we still call our collage masterpieces...camoflagues!