Bite your tongue!

"Mommy, if I can't say 'goddammit' at school, can I say 'goddammit' at home?"

Hello...can you say MORTIFICATION?

Amid total panic that she actually would utter those words at school (lest they think we're totally rotten parents!), I proactively fessed up to one of Lily's teachers that the G-D word had been used and that we'd talked about how it wasn't a nice word.

Just as I was about to back out of the classroom with my tail between my legs, the teacher chuckled and told me that one of Lily's classmates shouted "Oh Shit!" when she fell off her cot just days before.

And they're only two...

Speaking of classmates, here's the latest installment of the Huckleberry Cheesecake weekly Strawberry Newsletter. Enjoy!

PS -- new photos to come soon once I learn how to upload from my new camera.

Dear Strawberry Parents,

It was a flag waving week as we celebrated America's birthday! The taste of hot dogs and apple pie were still the lingering flavors in our mouths. We jumped right into some super circle time fun with sorting and grouping star shapes and colors and star number match! We counted 13 stripes on the flag and focused on counting and recognizing the numbers 1-13. We realized that flags gave us plenty of opportunities to practice our counting. We not only counted the stars and stripes, but we also enjoyed a game of "I Spy" around town. The Strawberries counted 22 American flags in and around our school, and so many buildings flew their flags high so all could see! We learned a lot of cool and interesting symbolic facts about our country's flag: the stars represent each state, red for courage, white for purity and innocence and blue for loyalty and fairness.

We were busy around the art table -- star printing with stamps, making fireworks out of glitter and bingo markers and creating a giant flag using torn pieces of red, white and blue construction paper. Tearing the paper was a fine way to work our finger muscles. Threading and lacing streamers was another great way for us to exercise our fine motor coordination.

We engaged in a favorite American pastime, a drive along route 66! We drove a car along a teacher-made map of the US checking out the sites along the way. The Strawberries each took a turn following the road and matching the color picture to the black and white one.

We worked in some dandy new literature such as How Many Stars in the Sky, The Flag we Love, When I First Came to This Land, America is Me, Tulip Sees America and I am American, a book showing and teaching diversity in our country.

That's a wrap for this week. Next week will be a beary fun week indeed with talk about BEARS!

All the best,
The Strawberry Teachers