Tales from the Preschool

"Kathy! Can I borrow you for a second?" Karin yelled from across the hall. People are always "borrowing" me at work, so with a "yup" I stepped over the toddler gate, took two steps, and was in Karin's classroom, where her Pre-Kindergarteners were sitting around the horseshoe-shaped table tracing letter Xs. On their sheets were drawings of a man in a throne, and the name Xerxes.

"I figured I'd ask the resident genius Bible aficionado. Where can I find King Xerxes in the Bible? The kids want to know why he looks so mad."

I had to laugh at that, because while I would have liked to recount the events of 300 in detail to Karin thus explaining why Xerxes was royally (pun intended) pissed off, she had asked about Biblical reference to the man.

"Uh, either Daniel or Esther. Check Daniel first," I finally said, considering calling my mother to ask. Karin was already flipping through the Bible in front of her though, and I was leaning across the table trying to catch a glimpse of any key words. "There, there!"

"Then Darius the Mede, son of Xerxes..." I jumped. "Hey, go to Esther!"

Karin flipped through the pages. Esther begins, "Now it came to pass in the days of Xerxes..."

I had to chew on that for a while. Was Darius the Mede Esther's son? More research required.

So I went back into the toddler room and proceeded to teach the animal dance to Ryan, who calls me "Mom." We were being snakes and monkeys and elephants and tigers (oh my!) when Karin burst into the room. "Kathy!"

I walked over to the door where she was half-leaning in. "This Xerxes guy was kind of a player," she said. "Maybe that's why he was so mad. Maybe he caught something. Maybe it hurt to pee."
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Side note on Ryan. His dad's a sheriff downtown. His mom's not in the picture. He's nineteen months old. When he first started, he didn't call me anything. Then, he graduated to calling both Rhonda and me "Noh-na". That evolved into calling Rhonda "Noh-na" and me "Moh-ma." Which evolved into "Mama". I tried to correct this.

"No, not Mama. Miss Kathy." Ryan was unfazed.

"No," he'd say stubbornly. "Mama." This week, I'm "Mom." He saw a picture of me in the church lobby, pointed to it, and said, "Mom!"

Jennifer asked him what her name was. "Jenzxjioenghiok." "Close enough," she said, then jabbed her thumb at me. "What's her name?"

He looked at me, smiled, and said, "Mom."
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P.S. Further research suggests that Darius was either Esther's son, or her father-in-law. Cool in a very geeky way.