There's a Penguin in the Bathroom!

At preschool, part of my duties include maintaining the library/workroom. Today was one of my library days, so I spent much of my time organizing and tagging books.

Next door to the library is a 4-year-old classroom. I like to listen in on what they're doing, because they happen to be the cutest class in the entire preschool. Today, the director of the preschool made a special visit to their class for a very important announcement, and this is what I heard:

Director: "Boys and girls, there is no longer a penguin in the bathroom. We have moved the penguin, and it's not in the bathroom anymore."

You'd think that at this point I would just start cracking up. Instead, my face got super hot and I'm sure turned beet red, and my heart fell through my stomach, for, you see, it was my penguin in the bathroom.

Let's back up...this is my penguin Pally:


I use him for some of the games that we play in several of my classes. Here's the problem...I can't keep him in the room when the two-year-olds are in there because he drives them beyond distraction. They won't do anything else as long as he's watching them. And even though Wednesday is largely a library day, I do have one two-year-old class first thing in the morning. So this morning I dropped him off in the bathroom and went about my two-year-old class.

Then I forgot about him.

Obviously this caused quite a stir as I gathered from the little announcement the director made to the k-4 class. Afraid that I'd be "talked to" about it, I made myself scarce until it was time for my next (and last) class of the day. As I returned to my classroom, however, I ran into our snack lady (nutrition coordinator, and believe me, she does a lot more than just fix snacks.) in the hall. She opened her mouth to, I was sure, bring up the incident, so I beat her to the punch.

"I overheard," I told her. The she just started laughing. Figuring I must not be in too much trouble, I relaxed and asked her what happened. "Did it scare the kids?" I asked.

Now, I need to preface this with a little information. That k-4 class by the library is the only k-4 class on the first floor, and the only classroom on the first floor without a bathroom in it. AND the classroom is too far from the public bathrooms on the first floor to just let the kids go by themselves. So every time one of them has to use the potty, the teacher has to radio down to our snack lady (Whose kitchen is next to my room and right by the bathrooms) to come escort the child to the bathrooms.

So our snack lady brought one child to the bathroom and he just thought that penguin was the coolest. She explained why it was there, he went on about his business, and she returned him to the classroom. No sooner did she return to the kitchen and she got another radio call that someone else needed to use the bathroom. So back down the hall she went to go get the second kid. Again, the child was wowed by the penguin. And, as with the child before, pottied and returned to the classroom. Now a THIRD call came in on the radio. Back down the hall she went, suspicious, but dutiful. She confirmed her suspicions when the third child was directed to the second bathroom (there are two) and said, "no wait! I wanna use the first one."

As the kids don't generally have special bathroom requests, she knew what was going on and talked to our director. And thus, the important announcement.

All ended well, though, as Pally is back in my room, safe and sound, and I didn't get "talked to" at all by our director. :)