little miss art director

today turned out to be 'take a pooka to work' day. kisu has another certification test tomorrow and we didn't have a sitter. so i bit the bullet and packed a bag full of distractions. i was very nervous about how well she would entertain herself for 8 hours. needlessly nervous, as it turns out.

fortunately, there was an empty cube and available computer today. i set pooka up in the morning with the website to make an m&m self-portrait. then i introduced her to adobe illustrator. for the first 90 minutes of the day, she was calling for my presence approximately every 5 minutes. i wasn't sure how long i could keep that up.

at this point, we were asked to sort and deliver the mail on the account side of the floor and that occupied us for about 45 minutes. sorting, with pooka helping to read the address labels and make stacks. then delivering the mail to approximately 25 recipients. she even lugged a half full mail bin by herself because it was "too heavy to carry." ?? everyone at work was enchanted with her, and who wouldn't be? a beautiful, confident, helpful, well-mannered, articulate 5 year old--with pink camo sweatpants and shimmer slippers.

we went out to the golden arch for lunch. she wolfed down 6(!) nuggets and spent 25 minutes on the play structure.

upon returning to work, i set her up with a movie on the widescreen monitor instead of the little portable dvd player. she watched the movie, doodled, and entertained herself very well. some people were wondering whether she was even still in the building! she behaved better than some of my coworkers; kemmer, in particular, spent minutes throwing popcorn into pooka's cube. she seemed truly perplexed as to how the kernels got there.

we had only one incident: although i gave pooka a capped bottle of water to avoid spillage and cautioned her to leave the cap on unless she was actually drinking, we did have an accident. unfortunately, it was all over the borrowed keyboard. i think i got it all dried out, but i'm not sure yet if the keyboard has regained 100% functionality. we shall have to see tomorrow. at least a keyboard is easily replaced. pooka was quite remorseful about the issue and asked me not to tell the owner. i told her that you have to own up to the things you do, even if they're accidental, and even if you know it means you might get in trouble. you have to take responsibility for your actions.

i was prepared to leave as early as 230 in case of melt-down, but figured on leaving at 4 anyway. 4 came before i realized it, and when i tried to get pooka to pack up, she was disappointed that we weren't staying a whole day. we made an m&m portrait for daddy and finally hit the road right at 5. pooka was asleep within 10 minutes. there is some benefit to be had from my long commute: pooka had enought time to get a good refreshing nap in before we went out to red robin as a treat for her excellent behavior.