Years ago I worked at a daycare center.  Excuse me…a "day school".  (Miss Alice would have a fit if she heard me calling it a daycare center!  Miss Alice was a beautiful proper southern belle, who called me Miss Ai-nuh-cree-us in the truest southern belle accent I have ever heard!)  I was in charge of the three year olds.  15 of them.  Most of them were pretty good kids and as much as I hated the job, I loved every one of those kids.  I could tell you some stories about them…  Everything we did was very scheduled, it had to be.  So every morning before "circle time" we would spend about 15 minutes outside.  The playground was divided into three play areas for the different age groups that shared it.  There was one area that was specifically fenced off for the younger children- 2 to 3 year olds.  This is where my story takes place. 

The "toddler" playground, as it was called, had a 3 foot fence on three sides of it.  The back fence was a standard 6 foot fence.  Behind that fence was a treed lot.  Every year in the fall, we would make pine cone bird feeders.  For those that don't know what those are, they are pine cones covered in peanut butter, then rolled in bird seed and tied to the trees!  The kids always loved this project and always talked about the birds they thought would feed on these pine cones.  But as many times as we made them, and hung them from the trees that overhung our fence, we never saw a single bird on them.  Miss Carol, one of the other teachers used to say it was because the squirrels would get to them before the birds ever had a chance.  I never paid that much attention to this because really, they hung pretty low!  How could the squirrels get to them?  Anyway, one day we were outside as usual and I was standing in about the center of the play area.  A few of the children grew very excited and started pointing out the squirrel that had come to visit and was standing on the back fence.  I turned around to look and there it was.  This squirrel seemingly staring at me!  I watched as it walked along the back fence and crawled down to the lower three foot fence.  It stopped periodically as though sizing up the situation and as it walked along the fence, I turned to keep facing it until it stood directly in front of me on the front fence.  At this point all of the kids were in awe as they watched this squirrel square off against me!  I swear it looked as though the darned thing looked me up and down, right before it leapt!  LEAPT about 6 feet, right onto me!  I screamed and still screaming, started jumping as I batted at it with my hands.  The squirrel in a frenzy and I think realizing it was in over it's head, leapt back onto the fence and bolted along the way it had come and up into the nearest tree!  Meanwhile all 15 of my three year olds were yelling, pointing, laughing and saying "Do it again Miss Anacris!"  You know, maybe I'm just better off staying indoors!  And that's all for now!

 Ciao!  Hasta la pasta baby!