beautiful things

we were studying animals this week, and one of the things we made the kids do is to bring a picture of their pet, or, in the absence of that, a favorite animal. as a surprise, my co-teacher and i decided to bring our pets to school. i do this anyway, since it's a great way to give the kids a hands-on experience with the subject matter.

my pet is a persian cat, (although i'm not too sure anymore about the pureness of it's breed), and my co-teacher has one of the descendants of my cat (a distant cousin or some other obscure relation). we got to show them to the kids, and they were soooo excited! their faces were all scrunched up, and they were practically wriggling in their seats to touch the animals. i got nervous because some of them were really hyped up about it, they were getting stiff and were clenching their small fists in their excitement.

now, my cat has a very sweet disposition, very affectionate and even tempered. he is also used to people around him, and does not mind at all the many petting and coodling he receives when we have visitors. but if he could have talked at all, i would guess he'd have said something like, "get these heathens away from me!!! they're gonna kill me!" he looked truly horrified! his eyes grew so huge, his pupils looked to be the same size as his whole eyeball. he curled up on my lap, trying to hide under my blouse. in fact, he got his face in the sleeve.

i promised my kids that they could pet him, and they were truly excited about it, so i didn't have he heart to say no. i let them pet him, one student at a time, and only once can they run their hands over his fur. he molted so much i was sneezing the whole day. by the way, my cat is all black. i wore a red blouse and linen pants. go figure. it took me almost half a roll of masking tape just to get his fur off my clothes.

but it was worth it. until now, the kids keep asking me how my cat is. i told them that he got scared and they all came to me to say they that were sorry they scared him. :) i wonder if i can make him our class mascot...