The amazing herding abilities of kindergarten teachers

Yesterday Little Geek Girl came home with a flyer in her message tube.  The upstairs and downstairs kindergarten classes were going to a play and they needed to be at school by 8:15 am or they would have to go back home.  Normally, kindergarten arrival time is between 8:10 am and 8:35 am and we usually get her there between 8:20 and 8:25 am.  To make things easier we picked her clothes and packed her snack last night so we could get out the door by 8 am and her to kindergarten by 8:10 am.

Normally Zürich Daddy Geek walks with her to school in a timely manner, and then we walk home together, with her mostly dawdling (stepping on all of the snow, balancing on all of the rock edging).  Since I wanted to get her to school on time I was holding her arm and pulling her steadily.  I meant to give her a pep talk on remembering her hat and gloves, but I forgot.  The knit gloves would be easy to replace because we got them here, but she didn't like any of the Swiss hats (too itchy) so the one she wears is from the US.

On my way home I was trying to decide whether to go back to the kindergarten or to meet them at the train station.  I decided to meet them at the train station, and there they were, two teachers, one parent, and 25 - 28 four to six year olds.  Most of the kids were sitting on the two available benches, but some of the kids were standing and LGG was one of them.  I said hi to the teacher and then I went to give LGG a kiss and a reminder about her hat and gloves.  She kind of shooed me away, because I guess mom's weren't supposed to be there.

I walked away and watched in awe as the three adults herded the crowd onto the train.  They're going to see a play about the First Christmas which means I'll get to field a bunch of new questions this afternoon.  Yesterday's questions were, who brings the presents in Switzerland and what's an angel, etc. etc.  I was worried when she came home at lunch talking about what present she was going to get since it was the first day of Advent.  However after calling a friend and asking another kindergarten mom I decided that they must have been talking about opening the first door of the Advent calendar and she was confused about getting a present.