Claire says, "Art is for nerds!"

At Claire's school Wednesday, the theme for the class was "farm animals". Having already visited Grandpa and Grandma Thullner's farm in SoDak a few times, Claire had a leg up on the other kids. She's seen cows, bulls, pigs, sows and feral cats. Incidentally, did you know they hunt feral cats in Australia? Good on ya, mates! Downunder, they consider the cats to be "varmints". But in SoDak, the cats are allowed to roam free. They usually eat pig slop, but they've also been known to steal food from my real-life farm dog pal, Lucy. Lucy lives with Grandpa and Grandma, and she even rides in the tractor with Grandpa Bob. Lucky dog...

By now, anyone who's read about Claire's school knows that Claire is always the first child to arrive at class. I guess being scholastically-inclined must be a hereditary thing (Claire's mother was Valedictorian of her graduating class way back in the early 1990's... a class of 12 students no less). Stew continues to try to leave the house later and later each week so as not to appear as though he's sucking up to the teacher and her two lovely aides by always arriving first. But Wednesday, when he saw Hezekiah and his mom pull into the school parking lot at the same time, Stew hustled to get Claire out of the car and into the school first... where he was greeted at the classroom with a "Hiiiiiiii, Stew!" from the trio of sexy teachers. Stew plays like he's embarrassed, but I think his "Goin' To School Shirt" he wears every Wednesday sends a different message.

Anyway, once all the kids arrived, they sat in a circle and sang songs. But something was different Wednesday because Claire didn't clap her hands for any of the songs (except after everyone sang "Hello, Claire!" to her). You see, normally Claire claps for all the kids, except for Ethan and Chase, after the "Hello" song. As it turns out, the non-clapping was a foreshadowing of the terror yet to come...

During song time, each parent was asked to take a farm animal hand puppet out of a box in preparation for the singing of "Old McDonald Had A Farm". Stew selected a cow puppet in honor of Grandpa and Grandma (who raise cattle). He immediately began wow-ing the crowd with his puppeteering proficiency. One hot mom even commented on Stew's "amazing dexterity." But unbeknownst to the ladies, Stew (along with his brother, Brad) were members of the Capitol Heights (Southern) Baptist Church Youth Puppeteers group while growing up in Pierre, SD. They performed puppet "skits" for a wide variety of audiences, ranging from preschool age Sunday school children to 90+ year old nursing home residents. Stew did not enjoy his time as a puppet master, so I suppose this explains his hatred of puppets, his anxiety when around old people... and his fear of Southern Baptists. Can I get an "Amen!"

In addition to the class having a "farm animal" theme, it was Art Day. Each child got the opportunity to paint on a construction paper tapestry shaped like a farm animal. Claire's brown tapestry was shaped like a cow. The kids used paint marker thingamagigs that look a lot like the utensils old ladies use while playing Bingo. Anyway, Claire was more interested in either throwing the markers or in trying to taste the delicious ink oozing out the end of the marker used for painting purposes. Therefore, Stew ended up doing the "painting" while Claire squirmed in her seat. She reportedly looked up at Stew and said, "Painting stinks, Papa... Now get me out of this chair so I can go play on the foam stairs!"

Here are some pictures of Claire showing off her (Papa's) artwork...