Isn't he "lively"?

Suddenly seems like blogging is feast or famine! But my, oh my, we've been busy! Alan's been making new friends... ...and making some music.

After his weekend of feeling not-so-hot, Dale did a lot of this on Sunday and Monday (without being told)...

Monday afternoon I left Alan with my grandparents and took Dale with me to go teach an afternoon of colorguard. I was kind of nervous about leaving Alan. I wasn't worried at all about Alan's well-being, but felt kind of concerned for how Nana & PawPaw would fare. :) I've had the ladies in our church nursery tell me Alan has worn them out, and that's after just an hour. I was leaving him for 3! By all reports though, things went well. But I think they were relieved to hear that I'm not going back to teach anytime soon. ;)
Dale and I enjoyed our afternoon out together. We usually listen to music in the car, but yesterday we just visited instead. After a while Dale said, "Let's just be quiet and ride for a little while." Okay. 10 seconds later (literally) - "Did you see that such-and-such? It was ... (fill in the blank with fun 4-yr-old-type details). " Repeat whole exchange every couple of minutes.

While I did my teaching thing, he played with some other little boys that were around. As usual, he had no problem jumping right in and making friends! :)

Then, today. Today I got in "Big Trouble". In my little corner of the world, my family and I can reach out and touch each other by phone at almost any time. And if we can't, we know ahead of time why. Well. This morning the boys and I got buckled in the van to take Dale to school. Dale said, "Do we have everything?"

"Yep"

"Do you have your cellphone?"
"No, I don't, actually. But I'll be coming right back home."

Whoops.

Discovered when I walked in with Dale (which I don't always do) that 3 out of the 4 adults weren't there today. Alan and I got all the way back in the van and I thought to myself that I just couldn't leave her there alone with 8 preschoolers. Not a good idea.

*Sigh*

So I went back in.

Not how I had intended to spend my morning, but at least I got to see Smokey the Bear. (I believe his name is technically "Smokey Bear", but my whole life I've heard Smokey THE Bear. Kind of like Oscar THE Grouch or Winnie THE Pooh. So the THE stays.)

So...when I got home and had 6 missed calls on the cell phone and 2 messages on the answering machine, all from the same 3 people....oops. I realized I had been seriously MIA for 2 1/2 hours. But I certainly didn't mind being "checked up on". It works both ways, believe me. :)

And the whole reason I went in with Dale this morning in the first place was to take this picture:

Really - Dale was a lot happier than he looks. Really. He looks like he was either trying to impersonate a toothless old man or get taffy un-stuck from his back teeth. But he was smiling for the camera. Really.
As I'm sure you've gathered from the pic, every week someone from his class is featured by a sign like this on the door. They sent home the yellow sheet the week before for us to fill out.

Since Dale can be kind of ... difficult? stubborn? silly? I felt the need to 'cheat' a little bit. Mainly on account of the first question: What is your favorite food? You'd think that would be a simple one. But, no. Dale had the same answer every time: "Cucumbers!"
Excuse me? He only had them about twice all summer and he wasn't incredibly crazy about them then. No matter how we phrased the question, the answer was always the same: "Cucumbers!" We finally managed from a series of multiple choice questions (the answers to which did not include cucumbers) get 'hamburgers' out of him. Insert answer to question #1.

His favorite song is the themesong to the movie "Cars".
Favorite person? Alan (awww)
Thing I like most about school? Painting
My best feature is my... Heart Beating (have to agree with him on that one!)

And then....what do you want to be when you grow up? We tried to get him to be creative on this one. His answer? "Farmer!" This is very odd and random, believe me. So we asked him what he was going to grow on his farm, expecting him to answer corn or hay or something. Nope. "Wheat!". So. Dale the wheat farmer.

But more curious than any of Dale's answers is the message his teacher wrote to him/about him:
"You are a very smart person and you 'liven up' the class."
Oh dear. I was ok with that until I noticed the quotes. Everybody knows that putting in quotes in places like that means "I wrote these words, but they aren't quite exactly what I meant. Wink, wink."
I hate to say, but I'm afraid she must have meant: "You are a very smart person, and you are a Wildchild."
What can I say? He has no experience being required to sit in a seat for any period of time other than meals. And to be in a room full of other people all his size? It's just too much for a guy to take.
Gotta love my Dale! :)