Mondays with Daddy

It is 8:17 on Monday morning and my wife just pulled out of the driveway to attend summer school training sessions. I am sitting across the table from my two year old daughter, Tate. She has started the morning off as a terror. That fact, combined with my love of a Bill Simmon's running diary, is the reason for my sharing the first--well, second--day of summer vacation.

8:20--Tate exclaims, "My all doned," and proceeds to play peek-a-boo around the candle between us. Her hands are covered with jelly and so is her face. "Daddy, all done," she coos again.
8:25--Time for educational televsion. On Demand offers many good programs, and I wanted to introduce Tate to the Blues Clues. Nope. This section is "free with subscription." Well, wait. Free and "with subscription" don't seem to go together. Instead, we'll be watching "Eyore's Sad Day." It fits the current weather pattern which is keeping us from palying outside.
8:29--Tate is off the couch and commanding our dog, Fortinbras, to "WAKE UP, FORTI." But, I am enjoying Tigger and the gang trying to cheer up that depressed ass.
8:33--I can't imagine I'll be giving updates quite this regularly. I just found an interesting article from the Seattle Times on small school academies to break up large high schools. My school of 900 will start year two of this method, though I don't quite understand how it will work--especially when we don't have the funding. On a separate note, Eyore is still sad and the gang is confounded by this. Tate is sitting in an upside down bathroom stool.
8:44--"Eyore's Sad Day" ended with a great message about just being with someone to cheer them up. We don't have to put on a show all of the time. Now, Tigger is bouncing endlessly through his mini-episode. Tate is no longer watching, having ditched the show for play in the bathroom. She's giving Elmo a bath.
8:50--"We're going on a trip/ in our favorite rocket ship..." Though she wasn't watching Tigger and Pooh, Tate realized it had ended. This bothered her, so she came to ask if she could watch "Rocket Ship" or Little Einsteins. She's sitting quietly on the couch. How long will it last?
8:53--"My poopie potty," she yells as she hops of the couch and runs to the bathroom. She's pretty much potty trained. Now she's distracted; she's playing in the bathroom once again.
9:12--Coloring Time: I'm giving Tate the letter A with a picture of an alligator and an acorn. We might as well be academically minded. The weather is still dreary--a few storms in the area.
9:27--I ask, "A is for?," she replies, "Jelly-fish." Time to start a Data team, I think.
9:31--"Daddy, all done. Crayons go away." She wants to paly with mayno, which I find out means Play-Doh. We have blue and yellow at the moment. Tate believes we have only red. She can identify colors, but more often than not, she doesn't. Is she just messing with me, or does she really not know them?
9:43--Play-Doh time is going well with the exception of the inevitable taste test. I'm reading about how Obama and McCain will handle racially charged campaign ads.
9:52--"My all done with play-doh, daddy." She's mixed the two colors and is trying to jam a large flat piece into the round opening. That's my girl. At most, my days will be broken into 20 minute increments. THIS won't help my ADD.
9:59--We finished cleaning up and set her up with Lynn Downey's The Flea's Sneeze. She's listening to it being read on CD. In retrospect, I should have given her a copy of Tolkein's The Hobbit, and let her listen to that on CD!
10:22--I'm thinking about next year, my classroom to be exact. Tate is in her room putting with her toy golf set. 'Please, Golf Gods, give her the ability to make the PGA.' Our dog, Fortinbras, wants to play outside, but the drizzle persists.
10:33--As Tate gets herself dressed, kind of, I found this magnet that I want to turn into a poster for my classroom: If you're going through hell, keep going.... The truth would benefit many of my students who come from a version of hell to my classroom.
10:38--This is so wrong of me. My wife just called to say she was on her way home because the time provided to set up her classroom can't be used. Why? Their waxing her floor. My first reaction? Sweet. Tate's been really well-behaved, but we still had to have lunch, do some more coloring, and put her down for a nap. Sweet. It's all I can say.
10:43--As I pushed "publish post," Tate walked in with her alphabet puzzle. "Daddy!!," she proclaims before dumping the pieces on the floor. She had the letters D, M, N, T, and Q in place when I turn around. Now she has E and I.
10:45--She struggled with L but nailed Z, followed quickly by K and Y. Wait, did that really just happen? She drops in S, J, P and O before struggling with C.
10:48--C was a tough one, but once in B came easily ("B for Boston" she reminds me!") A and T are now in but "Daddy help," blurts out for the letter R.
10:50--H, V, and U are all in. It looks like she figured out R. X and Wis are being placed now, but we're missing F and G. Uh oh.
10:53--All of the pieces are thrown onto the floor so she can stand on the puzzle! Sweet.
11:03--After redoing the puzzle, Tate carries it back to her room and proceeds to dump it, again. THIS is going to be my summer? I just finished teaching high schoolers that acted the same way.
11:11--"MOMMY'S HOME," I scream with joy.