Yesterday was my scheduled day to work the morning at Will's preschool. It was quite a fun day. Those little buggers keep me smiling. Of course, they also try my patience, but mostly they amuse me.
Some days we rotate around the rooms for "center time" and on this day I was in charge of the Language Arts room. In the science room they were experimenting with "Sink and Float" so I carried this into my room with rhyming words. Great fun. We were sitting on the floor sorting our -ink and -oat words when it happened. One little boy, we'll call him T, put his hand on my hand. "Oh how sweet." I think to myself. "He is really engaged and enjoying this." T looked up at me and said, "You have OLD hands."
Well sweet little T, this comes as no news to me. I have often thought my hands looked like my Mom's even when I should have had "young hands". My veins have always been close to the surface especially in my hands and I guess them are getting even more pronounced as I age. I can vividly remember in high school looking down at the veins on my right hand and thinking they almost spell the word "shy". The -s is a stretch but the -hy are spot on.
My Mom often hid her hands in photographs because she thought they were ugly. She had one finger tip that was misshapen because of a run in with a softball when she was in nursing school. Apparently her hospital was next to a school and some kids were playing ball. Even though it was against the rules she hopped the fence to play. In an attempt to catch a fly ball with no glove, her middle finger was broken. She was so afraid of getting into trouble she endured the pain of it healing incorrectly and never told a soul.
Thirteen years ago for Kevin's and my wedding, Mom splurged and had artificial nails put on her fingers. She loved them and thought they made her hands look more attractive. She continued to garden, scythe, knit and dig in the dirt as much as possible and continued getting those nails filled and painted up until she passed away. She claimed to never have had any problems with those nails breaking or splitting except for the time one caught on fire as she was putting another log into the fireplace.
One redeeming factor also happened at preschool however, later on in the day not one but TWO children in my room drew pictures of hearts and wrote their names in it then asked how to spell my name and proceeded to write it in too because they said they loved me. Old hands and all.
Awwww. I never knew the softball game was in Nursing school.
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