The Cherry Drop

School is out for Spring Break! I stayed late in an attempt to clear my desk, but got bogged down in the sorting of papers, the perusing of books, and the reading of student journal pages.

One entire entry was about the delight--no, let's make that the TRIUMPH--experienced by one of my girls as she conquered The Cherry Drop. She typed two full pages and included details such as I had forgotten from my own childhood. Allow me to paraphrase:

In case you don't know, the cherry drop is when you hang from a bar by the backs of your knees. This is actually called the pre-cherry drop. If you do this more than three or four times, the backs of your legs really start to hurt. But it's SO FUN! My friend and I were spotting each other as we tried to figure out how to do the cherry drop. At first, I kept landing on my hands and knees. But then I figured out that you have to swing your body really hard and then you can land on your feet. It took us about 35 minutes to figure it out and I was SO, SO HAPPY!!!

Really I should just post the whole thing right here on the blog. It was all I could do to keep myself from running to the teacher next door and forcing her and her husband to listen to the tale. It was one hundred percent pure joy. So glad that not only do I know what The Cherry Drop is, I conquered it myself once upon a time. When? and why? Do we stop cherry dropping?

We spent some time practicing for our upcoming patriotic program. One song is about the Bill of Rights. There's an instrumental interlude where the children are free to do as they wish for approximately fifteen seconds. Some children choose to sit quietly. Some shake hands with neighbors and talk and make a ruckus. One boy was doing some pretty fine cheerleading jumps (herky, I think it's called) on the front row. My favorite was the boy on the back row who waved his hand-held American flag in a circular fashion while his hips kept time to the music. Truly, a natural born rock star! Everyone dutifully returned to singing position at the end of this short period of time, but I kept laughing to the very end, feebly leading the actions.

I will miss them over Spring Break. Perhaps they will think of me too. One girl drew a sweet sentiment for me with a brand new spelling of my married name. They just crack me up.