1991 Kate @ 5
Kate started Mud Puddle when she was three years old. This, contrary to what Kate had believed, was not just a big puddle of mud to play in all day. Rather it was a pre-school. Kate quickly made friends with everyone there, and really enjoyed the company of her peers…and the paint! She was allowed to finger paint as often as she wanted! All she needed to do was put a smock on! She loved playing with the paint. She also learned the most fantastic game. It was called broken telephone. People would sit in a circle, and they would pass a message on by whispering it in the ear of the person next to them. It went around the circle, and it came out different! It made Kate laugh every time.
*****
Then there was Park Sites. After one year in Mud Puddle, Kate went to a different preschool. Here, Kate was used to having friends around, and quickly took charge. Her love for clothes made dress up a natural choice of activity. But Kate didn’t want any of this princess business!
One day at Park Sites, her mom arrived to pick her up, and the teacher told her she had to come in. That Kate had started an activity, and that it had been going on all afternoon. (Preschool was only half days back then). Kate had started out playing dress up, and then recruited everyone else in the class. They used the wooden blocks, they moved chairs and tables. The entire class worked together to build a giant pirate ship out of blocks, and they all dressed up as pirates. They spent the afternoon sailing turbulent seas and searching for long lost buried treasure. This, unfortunately, was never photographed.
1991-92 Inspiration for Pirate Ships
*****
During the winter of 1992, Kate entered a contest. It was a snow sculpture contest. After months of practicing in the front yard, the Poirier’s were ready to take on their most giant snow sculpture yet! They bundled up in their warmest of snowsuits, and headed off to Stewart Hall. The saw their snow pile, and started saying what it looked like:
“It’s a mountain!”
1992 Penguin
“It’s a skyscraper!”
“It’s a dinosaur!”
“Noooo it’s a penguin!”
And that it was. It was a penguin. But the birth of the penguin would not be easy. The snow pile was not nice, sticky snow. It was not perfect for sculpting. It was riddled with chunks of hard ice and porous sections where powdery snow would just spill out when exposed. So it became a slide. Kate climbed to the top, and then slid down. Again, and again, and again. And eventually, the penguin started to take shape. It wasn’t perfect, but it was fun and Kate spent the whole weekend in a good mood! And that very penguin won first place, and Kate and Sarah won art lessons at Stewart Hall.