Teacher's baaaaack!

For a period of over three weeks, the JK teacher was absent. You see, she is pregnant and several children came down with hand, foot and mouth disease. While the disease is not dangerous to adults, it can be extremely harmful and even fatal to infants and developing embryos. So the JK teacher took a leave of absence from the classroom in order to ride out the germfest in a safe environment.

During that absence, the children "changed". Some of the quiet ones grew boisterous. Some of the noisy ones quieted down a little (or perhaps they appeared less so because their peers had become more outgoing...). In any case, the noise level had become something to behold.

But yesterday, the JK teacher returned. Simone knew it even before she entered the classroom. How?

It was QUIET! Unbelievably quiet in the classroom. The teacher divided the kids into groups of two and sent them off on missions around the classroom and they did it. All the woman needed was a magic wand to give credence to the idea that magic really does exist! Because those kids who'd been seemingly impossible to control were now doing precisely what she told them to do.

Totally inspiring. Totally.

Mais qui a allumé la clim?

Après quelques journées d’une chaleur quasi infernale, voilà que la température a chuté. Mais pas un tout petit peu. É-nor-mé-MENT!

D’un jour à l’autre, nous sommes passés de 39 degrés Celsius à 8! Bon, d’accord, cela donne à Simone l’occasion de porter un de ses petits vestons hyper mignon mais tout de même… La clim, c’est réservé pour l’intérieur. Qu’on le sache : on ne l’allume pas à l’extérieur. Surtout pendant les mois de juin, juillet et aout. Et ajoutons mai et septembre à la zone interdite, histoire de se réchauffer un peu.

Réchauffement de serre. Bah.

Heeeeeaaaaat

Simone held off turning the air conditioning on. Then the temperature went from 15 degrees Celsius to 25. Okay, so she could sleep with the window open.

She went to bed at 8:30 pm. Hubby was already snoring by then, his earplugs firmly inserted. Simone fell fast asleep but was woken up by an urgent need to use the facilities that left a mess. She cleaned up the mess and went back to sleep.

At 11 pm, she woke up, heart pounding as she stood next to her bed. She could hear a little boy screaming in pain. Not little B, thank goodness but the next door neighbour's squeals had woken her up nonetheless. She tried hard to go back to sleep and finally succeeded some time before midnight.

At midnight, a group of people decided to take their party outside their house. They laughed, argued, shouted for the next two hours as Simone prayed for them to please go to bed. Please.

At two fifteen, the alarm rang.

Sigh.

(By 3 am, the air conditioning had been turned on and the windows had all be firmly shut...)

Il fait chaud!

Histoire de ne pas s’habituer à quoi que ce soit, la température venait de sauter, du jour au lendemain, de 12 degrés Celsius à 26 Celsius. Du coup, à l’école, on trouvait de tout : des élèves en t-shirts et en short alors que d’autres portaient encore des chandails avec des pantalons. Inutile de dire que certains de ces élèves avaient très, très chaud.

Simone, pour sa part, avait enfilé une paire de shorts avec un t-shirt. Très bien, elle avait remarqué le changement de température. Moins bien, elle n’a pas porté d’écran solaire donc paf! Coup de soleil.

Et dire que demain il doit faire 39 degrés! Autant espérer que la récréation aura lieu à l’intérieur. Et que les parents des élèves feront la police vestimentaire toute la semaine : il ne fera pas plus chaud que 16 degrés Celsius pour le reste de la semaine…

Visiting the neighbours

Little B was beside himself: little M next door had invited him over to play t-ball in his backyard.

"Mom! Mom! Can I go?" He asked repeatedly.

Simone had a million things to do. "You have to eat your dinner first," she said at last.

Little B made a face but complied. "I feel sick," he informed Simone near the end of his meal.

"If you feel sick, you can't go play with little M," Simone pointed out reasonably.

Little B made another face but finished his meal in silence. He dutifully cleared his plate from the table without being asked and turned to his mother. "Now can I go?"

"Yes," Simone agreed. "You can go." She walked little B over to the neighbour's and went home to finish her chores.

She'd just sat down to dinner when the doorbell rang repeatedly. "I guess he's done," Simone muttered. She headed toward the door, a little surprised that little B would only want to play for twenty minutes.

Little M's older sister, little K, stood alone at the door. "Hurry! Little B threw up three times! He's really sick but he doesn't want to go home!"

Simone dutifully hurried over. The poor little guy sat, surrounded by a BIG mess. "I don't want to go home!"

Little M chimed him. "I don't want him to go home." He reconsidered. "Can I go home with little B?"

Simone shook her head. After some intense negotiations, it was agreed that the boys could play the following day, provided everyone was healthy. Then Simone bundled little B off to take a bath.

"Race you to the top of the stairs?" Little B suggested. Maybe it was just the excitement of visiting a friend that tossed his stomach...

Les chiots : 10 points

Le coussin du fauteuil extérieur? 0 points.

Simone avait mille et une chose à faire : la vaisselle, passer le balai puis ensuite la vadrouille, se laver le visage, se brosser les dents… Entretemps, les chiots étaient dehors, histoire qu’ils se défoulent un peu. Après tout, il pleuvait des cordes depuis le matin et ils avaient passé la journée à l'intérieur.

Sauf que trois quart d’heure plus tard, lorsque Simone alla les chercher, les chiots se défoulaient un peu trop. En effet, ils s’attaquaient furieusement à un coussin du fauteuil extérieur. Ils déchiquetaient la mousse en petit morceaux et l’éparpillait partout dans la cour. Sans ajouter qu’ils avaient fait leurs besoins sur la terrasse.

Inutile de préciser que Simone n’était pas du tout contente…

Gas

No, not the intestinal kind of gas...

This morning, Simone heard the dogs barking in their cage. She let them outside so they could do their business then turned the stove on to heat up her kettle. A few minutes later, it was time to let the dogs back inside.

Simone dutifully let them in, bending down for the usual meet and greet, then led them back to their cage where she told them to go back to sleep after they ate their treat. After all, it was merely 4 in the morning - definitely not time to get out and play.

Only the puppies did not go back to sleep, as was their custom. In fact, they yipped and whined and scratched at their cage. Simone sighed and let them go outside again.

But when the dogs were in their cage again, the infernal racket began anew.

Simone paused to blow her nose for the zillionth time that morning - dang cold had her sinuses all stuffed up! - before she remembered her kettle. Only the kettle was not boiling. Not at all. But the element on the stove was releasing all kinds of gas that Simone was only beginning to smell now that she stood close to the appliance.

As soon as Simone turned off the element and opened the window to clear the air in the house, the puppies settled down to their nap. Just goes to show that the puppies sometimes do know best...