Two Weeks Down

Thursday's warm playdate required some creek time, but not until the chicken seed had been distributed. Miss Swee-Tee hasn't spent too much time at the creek, so she and Gwanfader were warned about the grumpy ol' troll that lives under the bridge.

Lucky for them, they came out unscathed.
Time for a little catch and release.

Miss Bugg has gotten out of the creek habit and was bit squeamish about all the wiggling things, and while Swee-Tee didn't want to touch, she loved looking and sloshing through the water.
Bean on the other hand would have loved to have sat right down for a spell and he caught minnows, crawdads, he is now bold enough to pick up,  and threw rocks at snakes, until his Pappy came down for a bit of rock skipping.

I suppose in light of 1st Lt.'s long absence, I worried most about him.  He's a sensitive guy. I'm thankful he has so many good male figures that he spends time with every week.
Lots of folks have naturally asked if I've heard from 1st Lt., but I haven't.  Bean was able to talk to him last weekend when he hit his first ball and got on first.  Ceece says 1st Lt.  texts though.  Bean gave him one of his little army Lego guys to take with him.  Apparently he poses the little toy guy with something that he's doing and sends it to them now and again.
Bugg seems more affected to me than I thought she'd be.  She is such an "in the moment" party girl.  Daddy comes up in conversation a lot and the whole sudden scared of the chickens, scared of a crawdad, clinginess, make me wonder if that is kind of her expression of missing him.  I was swinging her and she said, "It just seems like Daddy should be picking me up, but I know he won't be." Then back to swinging and singing followed by, "Daddy will only miss one of our birthdays, just one." Next song please.  Ouch, poke, poke, another heart squeezer.
On Wednesday it was fun to celebrate Aunt Lois' 92nd birthday. I walked off to sister SuZQ's without my camera. Pete told me he'd send me the ones he took, but I haven't gotten them yet. SuZQ fixed a yummy meal and a couple of Lois' friends from Florence were able to visit.  It was nice to celebrate together.
Next week, in the classroom, I administer the final ISTEP test.  This week has been so stressful and long.  You can feel the tension in the building as we move toward this testing time.  Well, soon it will be over and I'll have fifteen days for the kind of teaching I enjoy!!