For her birthday, at my urging, Kate got Alice a Box of Junk. Kate used to be a teacher and had a knack for accumulating interesting stuff, which she occasionally offloads on our kids. Here, using the "new" stuff from Kate, Alice is organizing some plastic flies on a piece of bumpy foam and is imagining they're having a fly race.
On her second day as a 6-year-old, I had to take Alice in to work with me for a few tasks: I needed to enter grades (the state-mandated exam scores always come in late for English) and bring all my plants home. Alice had been asking to see my school for a long time, since she was last there probably two or three years ago. It never works out to have her there on a school day, but luckily there were enough people there, even on the first week of summer break, that she got a fun tour and I got to introduce her to many of my coworkers. The most exciting part was that the principal told her to go pick peaches from the peach tree near the parking lot. Nothing could have made Alice happier.
(Update: The peaches were hard as a rock, but I ripened them in a paper bag and they were ready for the most delicious peach cobbler ever for Father's Day dessert.)
