My poor peanut had a rough day at preschool last Thursday. It was rainy and yucky, and that just about summed up her mood, too. They were having a "Fancy Nancy" ice cream party that Little L and I went in to help set up for. At the appointed time, MJ shuffled in with her class with her fancy bead necklace and sparkly crown that she had made the day I was in the classroom as the "teacher's assistant" (there's a job description I didn't prepare for in college), looking so glum I wanted to promise her ice cream every day for a year.

So they all sat down in front of little name cards they had also made, and she looked up at Little L and I standing nearby and tried to muster a smile, weak though it was. She ate her ice cream, keeping her head down pretty much the whole time, until the entertainment portion of the morning began.

Apparently in the book Fancy Nancy, which they had been reading all week at school, a waiter drops a tray full of ice cream. So the preschool folks had one of the dads carry a tray full of empty Styrofoam bowls between the tables where the kids sat, and then pretend to trip and drop the tray.

But he really did fall, a la Jack Tripper in "Three's Company," and made a pretty good crashing sound for a fake tumble. The tray clambored to the ground, the bowls went flying ... and the kids, most of them, weren't quite sure what to make of it. A few laughed, but mostly they were quietly unnerved by it. I mean, after all, here's someone who could have been their own daddy, falling to the ground with a great commotion. Even I was a little worried, and I was in on the joke. Surely someone would cry. Surely, someone would wonder about the safety of the daddy/fake waiter.

And sure enough, above the confusion came one colossal cry and accompanying bucket of tears. From my MJ. And what did she say, when she stopped heaving long enough to say something? Did she express concern for the poor guy who took the fall, you might ask?

Not exactly.

"Oh no!" she wailed, "The ice cream! The ice cream is all gone! What are we going to do?"

Oh, MJ.

To be fair, though, she's not totally about the desserts. At the end of the day, the teacher asked each of the kids what they're favorite part of the day had been. She wrote each of their responses next to their names on a poster and taped it to the wall in the hallway where we parent types were waiting to pick up our small ones. MJ's answer? "Ice cream and Mommy."

I'm sure she didn't mean it in that order.

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