I am not her grandfather!

Remember the movie Kindergarten Cop? Well, I somewhat experienced it this week. I was at the Stephensons while they were at the clinic. The next morning (Thursday), Claire and Erik joined me for the trip north. As we were traveling out of Brigham City and just before we entered the canyon, a doe tore across the road right in front of us! I hit my brakes and as she passed just in front of the Camry, her hoof hit the underside of the front fender. That was close! She ran up the hill so all was well. We continued our journey that ended at the North Park school.
Thursday was Centers day in Louise's class. Someone might say that it is the day when cute projects are completed that teach shapes, skills, and other nice sounding things. From the perspective of a guy that has worked with adults all of his adult life, I thought it was more like careening down a four black diamond slope on your first day of skiing! As I settled behind Louise's desk with her computer for protection, Louise announced that “Mr. Peterson” can help over at the purple table. Oh great, she discovered me. It was the weaving project. We staple a piece of red paper here and then weave it between the slots of paper. When that is done, glue another red paper and continue weaving but alternating so it looks like a mat. Other than the “deer in the headlights” look from some of the children, others jumped in and started whipping that red paper through the slots – OK, so they missed some slots. In the middle of stapling and gluing, I was reweaving. Then there was Jeff who must have said ten times after missing multiple “weaves”, I need to do it FAST. If I don't do it FAST, my mom gets mad at me. Right Jeffy, why don't you just move on real FAST! Oh yes, I was also calming some of the them when the announcement was made to rotate to a new area and they were not yet done with their project. In the middle of all this, Louise came by to look at their/my work, and one of the children asked “Is he your grandfather.” Right. Kid, say that again and I will break you like a pencil! Not really, I was laughing inside. (Note: Just to prove to myself that I wasn't some old guy, I swam a mile Friday morning.) They are sweet children and I was again impressed with the incredible job that Louise does with them every day.
In the afternoon session I was once again at the boy weaving table but was gluing the blue rectangle onto the red and white mat to make a flag. I wrote their names in glitter so now I had glittering fingers, some on my pants, etc. Its a wonder what a guy does for his grandchildren. Louise also had the children sing When Washington (and Lincoln) was President. She dressed Erik up as Washington (note the photo).
We had a good time with Claire and Erik as we do with all of our grandchildren. Our only regret is that we don't see them more often.

What do those smiles really mean?

Erik "Washington" came to visit.

Louise at work with the children. She is good!