Turtle Sitting: Tomasa Came Home

As you may recall, Nora's preschool class mascot is a big turtle, named Tortuga Tomasa. After some foul play incidents a decade ago, the mascot is now a stuffed turtle, and not a real reptile. We were told that every weekend throughout the year, the Tomasa would travel home with one kid in the class to be cared for at home. However, since there are so many children in Nora's class, the policy was amended to have a child take the stuffed reptile home every single day to maximize participation. I was hoping we'd get lucky and have Tomasa for a weekend, but we got even luckier. Nora brought her home on a Tuesday, the children went on a field trip to a local zoo on the Wednesday (so Tomasa had to stay home), the Thursday was All Saints Day (no school), and then they had Friday off as a bridge day, so Tomasa stayed at our house for five days!

She's a big old thing. I've never seen a real sea turtle, but I suspect she's life sized.

Very soft and very cuddly.

The teacher fastened some suspenders to her for easy carrying. Tomasa is too heavy for the actual three year olds to carry her to and from school, so that duty falls to the parents.

Nora can carry her for short periods, but not enough to make it all the way to school, I think.

Of course Tomasa didn't really get played with much during her stay, but Nora showed her some of her dolls and toys.

Turtle power!