"What did you do at school today, Leia?"

"Today I did the table washing work, Mamma! I needed a lesson, though. Outside on the playground I swung on the swing, but the best part of the day was collecting crunchy leaves with my new friend Sophia, but I didn't bring them home because I had to clean up. And for snack we had cheese piles! They were these little squares of 'daddy cheese' [that's what we call American] that we would pile up and eat! I heard about a new Fishy Marble work. No, Mamma, I haven't done it yet because I haven't had a lesson. And at circle time we sang a turtle song. It went like this: [to the tune of Miss Lucy Had a Baby] 'I had a little turtle, his name was Tiny Tim. I put him in the bathtub to see if he could swim. He drank up all the water. He ate up all the soap. And now he's home sick in bed with bubbles in this throat! Bubble, bubble, pop! Bubble, bubble, pop!' [And during dinner . . . ] This little girl named Greta fell of the trapeze today. She needed the ice sponge. I needed the ice sponge when I got those two scrapes on my knees last year. They bled a lot!"

And then I got some GREAT info from Mrs. McDowell via e-mail today! Here's what she wrote:

"I am sure you heard about it from Leia but she had an interesting experience today. We finally put out the chair and table washing works. I don't know if you are familiar with them but each one has a couple of buckets, towels, soap and a brush and there is a whole system to taking these things to either a table (blue bucket) or chair (pink). Chandan was doing the table washing work and he was doing it for a lonnnngggg time. None the less Leia watched verrrry patiently as he did the work and finally put it back on the shelf. Leia was right there behind him to snatch up the work and took it to a table and started doing the work but she hadn't had a lesson yet and when Mrs. Schnell walked by her and noticed her doing the work incorrectly she said, "Leia, I can tell that you haven't had a lesson in this work so please go and put it back on the shelf.

"Well, even though Leia had been waiting and waiting and then had laid out all of these things to do the work she didn't complain and just started to pack it up. I had sort of heard and seen the whole thing from the other side of the room so I waited a moment and then went up to Leia as she was finishing packing the work back up and asked if she was ok and she sort of almost teary just said "well, I know it was a mistake." Oh it was so sweet. She wasn't mad or ticked that she couldn't do it her way, I know that she really understood what had happened but was still a little sad about it. I explained that once she put it away I was sure she could go ask Mrs. Schnell for a lesson and sure enough right as Leia was putting it away Mrs. Schnell found her and asked "Now Leia I would love to give you a lesson in that work if you would like." which they did and all was healed.

"Anyway, it was sort of a sweet and actually mature interaction. I hope you can appreciate it as I try to retell it in email which is never as good as in person but at least we have this right?"