I was busy helping toddlers glue rigatoni onto a paper inside a diamond shape, when Chrissy climbed on the table to take Jessi’s paper (Why? Who knows? Kids!) and fell off, smacking her lip into her teeth and bleeding.

I was busy calming her down and stopping the bleeding when Marty managed to unscrew the lid off the glue and dump it all over the carpet.

I was trying to salvage the carpet when Anna screamed that she saw a mouse and several children jumped onto chairs in an imitation of her and giggled uproarously.

I suggested the mouse really likes pasta and was very friendly and named Ralph and almost had Anna off the chair, when the other children pointed out that the hamster was missing.

We had a hamster hunt involving emptying every book, toy bin, and art supply out of every cabinet before we found Mr. Squeaks sleeping on a lost mitten behind a filing cabinet.

I was putting Mr. Squeaks away when the first parent arrived and let out an expletive that was followed by the only silence of the day.