I think I'm fairly adaptable.  Honestly, when things don't go the way I plan, I'm usually able to just step back, readjust, and move forward.  (After the initial few seconds of bemoaning the fact that my original plan didn't work out).    But, if the new plans involves winged rodents, well, I'm not so sure I'm that adaptable.....

Yesterday, the girls and I got up early (well, that's relative, but we were dressed and out of the house by 9:00 a.m.).  We went to the playground at Gracie's new school to meet up with a few of her classmates.  One of the mom's in Gracie's preschool class who has older children suggested that we take our soon-to-be kindergartners to play on the playground at the elementary school so that they become a little more familiar with the school before their first day there.  So, that's just what we did.  We played for an hour or so and then we had to make a run back home because we couldn't find a potty (they have bathrooms at the elementary school - it's just noe of them were unlocked...Gracie was a bit concerned when she thought there were no potties at her new school).  We stayed here for a while and I finished up a little work.  Then we headed back out to the school to play the "drop-off" game.

I really think that one thing that's going to be different for Gracie next year is drop-off.  All through preschool, I've walked her to her classroom and signed her in each morning.  In kindergarten (since I can't quite get up the nerve to let her ride the bus), I'll be driving her to school and then dropping her off in the carpool lane.  I decided that if we practiced this routine a few times, it will be easier for her.   This week was a perfect time to do that....when it's just the three of us, I don't really have enough people to play the drop-off game.  Someone has to be the teacher to wait in the drop-off place, someone has to be the mom to drive off, and someone has to be the student getting out of the van.  Well, you can probably see my problem when it's just Gracie, Abigail & me.  I can't exactly leave Abigail standing there to be the teacher....she'd just wander off to who knows where....and I can't exactly let her be the mom and drive the van, although she'd enjoy that....So, having Ruby & Emmie here for the "drop-off" game was perfect.  Abigail & Ruby were the "teacher" and Gracie was the "student" for the first run.  Emmie played the baby sister and I played the mom (that's a role that I kept for the whole game....really, while I think I'm a cool aunt, I'm not cool enough to let my 8-year-old niece actually drive.... ).  I'd let whoever was the teacher out and then drive around the small circle and then let out whoever was the student.  We went through the whole scenario several times and I think Gracie (and me, too) is a lot more comfortable with the whole routine now.  Just another reason to say "YEA FOR COUSINS!"

After the drop-off game, we planned to go downtown to the children's museum and have a picnic in the park across the street.  As we drove up, I thought "hmmm, there's a lot of open parking spaces.  Good!  It won't be crowded."  Well, yeah, that would be because the museum is closed on Mondays.  Oops!!!  So, we just changed plans and decided to head town the park at the bay for a picnic and then to the National Aviation Museum.  As we pulled into the parking lot at the park, I noticed a lot of these guys:


And you know how I feel about these guys.  But, they were all congregating in the center, so the girls and I found a nice place far away from them on the outer perimeter, spread the picnic blanket out, and started to eat our lunch.


Abigail was there...trust me...she'd just wandered off to pick up a bird feather.  A few minutes later, a woman pulled up in a van with her two kids.  They jumped out with a bag of bread crumbs and proceeded to hold the crumbs out to the birds less than TEN FEET AWAY FROM US!!!!  You know what that means, folks?  Yep, 10 zillion birds with their beady eyes and deadly talons, shrieking and squealing started swooping in way to close for comfort.   It was like being in Trafalgar Square, only not really because in 2003, the mayor of London got smart and banned the feeding of the birds.  Maybe Pensacola will get with the program soon.



 

And then the (I'm not gonna call her an idiot, I'm not gonna call her an idiot) bird lady and her kids and her bird crumbs wandered off to the center of the park, leaving the birds with no food.  Birds are stupid animals, but they not completely devoid of instinct.  Once they realized the bread crumbs had departed, they quickly focused on the fact that there was other food close by.  Now, whether they thought that food was our Lunchables or my precious girls, I don't know and I wasn't going to find out.    I stood up and started stomping and shooing and hollering trying to get them to move away from us...truthfully, I was making quite a scene.  Now, if the girls were in the middle of pre-teen angst. they would have rolled their eyes, groaned, and died from embarrassment.  But, since they're not and they're awesome kids, here's what they did.  Ruby stood up and said, "Hey!  Let's help Aunt Daffy scare the birds!"  And they all four jumped up and started hollering and shooing them and running them away.  And the scene that I was making?  Well, it was nothing compared to the five of us together! 


Here are Ruby and Emmie chasing one off (they ended up getting ahead of it...faster than a bird are these girls!)  I wish I could have captured a picture of the looks on their faces (I was too busy, though, feeling sick to my stomach at the thought of the birds' gross little bodies getting close to any of us).  The girls were all determined to rid our picnic area of the vermin.  Abigail even spit at one...an offense that would normally get her a time out, but this time earned her a high-five from her mama (okay, not really, but I didn't put her in time out...just reminded her that spitting isn't generally a nice thing to do). 

Once the birds had flown off, we settled down to eat again and the (i'm not gonna call her an idiot, i'm not gonna call her an idiot) bird lady pulled out her bread crumbs again and enticed all the birds back to the center.  The birds swooped and flew all around her, coming close to her hand to eat. 






If this had been a picture of me, I'd have had to been institutionalized. 







































And if this had been a picture of one of the girls sitting in the middle of the rats with wings, I'd have passed out from panic right then and there thinking about the birds attacking one of them or about one of the winged rats carrying who knows what kind of gross, disgusting bird disease.... 


And so our picnic passed...the (i'm not gonna call her an idiot, i'm not gonna call her an idiot) bird lady and her bread crumbs would entice the birds over to her.  She and her children would smile and coo lovingly to the birds and sit down with them like some kind of bird version of Dr. Doolittle.  Then, the birds would come at us and we would shriek and stomp and holler at them.  I'm quite sure the (i'm not gonna call her an idiot, i'm not gonna call her an idiot) bird lady was thinking that we were some kind of bird-hating lunatics.  Which I guess, in hindsight, was probably an accurate description.





I'm going to do a separate post about our afternoon adventures...our trip to the museum was fun but not exactly wrought with danger like our picnic....