The Garden School Tattler

I've always liked the word concierge. There's something down right snooty about it. "Let me call the concierge, Daahling; I'm sure the concierge can help."

With the way things are going, I will probably retire as a cat concierge. That's mostly what I do at home these days. I am called one way or another - meow from Birdbite or MENOW from Clonmacnoise (he's a male) and then there's the tireless wait from the little ill and starving old stray who appears on my porch but won't come in. I call him Terminal. Then there's the nasty little female who would take over my home we call Spook.

They are always in constant need. It's quite pathetic. I go through cat food like Tuchachevski went through East Prussia. Sometimes they eat it and sometimes they do a light swoon as if to say, the croutons are not toasted enough - fish again? Oh dear, I'm not sure I like the bowl; does this come in a chicken flavor?

Keeping up the cat pace like a good concierge keeps me trim and fit for childcare duty. At school it's a constant quizzing, a constant onslaught of demands. It's almost a game to satisfy the kids who want only the orange marble. We used to have two orange marbles, and one child wanted the smaller one and would fuss all play period for that marble. What they don't know is it's a miracle we even know where the marbles are.

Managing toys means knowing all the kiddy tricks. Children hide their favorite toys behind things so they can easily find them later and no other child will find it first, so putting toys away has become a nightmare with everyone finding little stashing places all over the school. What the kids keep forgetting are the hiding places and that they liked that toy to begin with or why. So deep in the bottom of a puzzle box we will find two army men that have been lost three weeks. It's hilarious once you drop the pretense and relax. It's like the concierge taking off his tie.

One kiddy trick is the indoor intercepting run. We don't run in the building. We walk, but a run seems permissible if they are getting something like a drink, or telling a teacher something, or getting to the end of the carpet before the toy hits the ground. "Stop running!" "But I was just..."

Boys and girls really don't like the same toys nor do they play with the same toys the same way. Girls like smaller toys that move and have thousands of parts. Boys like things that explode, make noise and come apart into a thousand pieces. We usually give the boys a larger play area.

Recently, we were given a lovely set of Polly Pockets. These are just for the girls. The boys simply take off all the clothes and scatter the parts trying to make baskets through the chimneys of the play houses. The girls actually play and create homes and skits, and take part in sharing.

Knowing all this stuff and orchestrating it is a lot like cat concierging. Knowing all the details and being able to use them to achieve a minimum order is fun. Some days I actually get frisky and feel more like the shuffleboard queen on a large cruise ship hoping to save the puck from being shot overboard.