Nate saves the seals

Yesterday was Nate's classroom party. Heaven forbid you call it a Christmas Party, or use red and green decorations. Sheesh.

So there were snowmen, and blue and white balloons, and build-your-own-pitas, and chocolate fondue.

OK, so it's not exactly a hard knocks life...

And the kids made these adorable little snowman ornaments.

And then I realized that Skip was FINISHED with finals (did I mention that his English final consisted of reciting 14 lines from Romeo and Juliet? And THAT WAS IT?) so I raced off and grabbed him, and brought him back to Nate's class.

Where he was a total hit!

(rats, I should have taken more photos of the other kids with Skip. They really thought he was All That And A Bag Of Chips. One little girl followed him around. Which thrilled Nate, because usually she follows HIM around... and has NO sense of personal space bubbles.

See?

I could not make this stuff up. But Skip just rolled with it, possibly because he has a little sister, and they're ALL alike in his view.

Towards the end of the day, the kids were starting to get antsy (honestly, they'd been AMAZINGLY well-behaved right up until the very end), and then someone said "Let's release the balloons!" and suddenly, there was this surge of kids heading outside with their balloons.

And whoosh! They all released them together.

I was a little leery of the whole thing. You know, balloons go up, balloons come down, fish and turtles eat them and die. But I was outnumbered, I think. And I'm a big old chicken-liver, and didn't speak up. It certainly was pretty, though... if perhaps a wee bit sperm-like.

And then suddenly, I heard one of the other mothers say "The next person who bothers Nate is going to get HOMEWORK over the winter break!" and I looked over, and some boys were trying to wrestle Nate's balloon out of his hands. Fortunately, he had a good grip on it, and Skip was running interference, too.

Nate did NOT want to release his balloon. I don't think it was quite for the altruistic reasons that I would have had, but I congratulated him (quietly) for saving the seals.

And he grinned, with his balloon tied securely to his wrist.