i thought it had to be a quarter . . .

so today . . . i was standing on the playground, in the warm sunshine (our little 6' x 3' sun spot,) watching our 4 and 5 year olds play. pretty soon, candice came to me to show me a shiny rock she had found. it was about 1/4" long, and it was white, but it didn't look shiny to me at all. however, she thought it was beautiful! so i admired it and told her she could put it into her pocket so it wouldn't get lost. which she did.

about 15 minutes later she came up to me with a sad face. she said to me, "where's my shiny rock?" i reminded her that she had put it in her pocket. so she checked her pockets again, looked at me and kind of shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. i said, "well candice, i don't know where it is. i don't have it." she crooked her finger at me so i would lean down near her, which i did. i thought she was going to whisper in my ear, so i turned toward her. she came close to me, reached her little hand up to my ear, and pulled the rock "out" of my ear! there it was in her hand, and she had this surprised look on her face, kind of like "look at that!" she shrugged and said, "i guess it was in your ear!"

i was stunned! that little girl had just done the "pull the quarter out of your ear" trick, and i hadn't had a clue that it was coming! i laughed and laughed--in fact all the teachers on the playground who had seen it laughed. it was hysterical! and the look on her face was priceless! she was still trying to look like she could hardly believe what had happened, but at the same time, she was so proud of herself for pulling off the joke.

tomorrow is going to be candice's last day in my class. the current economic situation has hit her family especially hard, and so they have had to make some difficult decisions. i am going to miss having her in my class, but i will never forget how she pulled that tiny, shiny rock out of my ear . . .