winding down

i ran into the assistant principal today (thankfully, only figuratively) and she asked how much longer i get to stay at the school.  i had to pause for a moment before responding "next friday?  wow, yeah, next friday."  this really has flown by.  i no longer have any real responsibility (no more lesson planning) - i am now just an extra set of hands.  so i'll share two tidbits that haven't yet made the blog yet:

tidbit 1:
one of my kids asks the most interesting questions to me.  he is very curious; he's the one who asked what i was wearing under my shirt, for those of you who know the story (for those of you who don't, he asked me one day what i was wearing under my shirt.  when i told him nothing he said "but what about those?," referring to a couple elements of my anatomy.).  he also once asked me, upon my return from the ladies room, "which bathroom did you go to?"  i said i went to the girl's room, and he asked "why?"  "because i'm a girl."  "oh, ok."  the most recent inquiry: "do you have a ring?"  "nope."  "well, have you ever been married?" "no."  "oh, well good," he said, and scooted over closer to me.  i didn't have the heart to tell him i don't date younger guys ;)

tidbit 2:
the kids have just gotten into the habit of calling each other, and the teachers, silly names.  they will call someone by another person's name (or random objects, such as the other day when a child turned to me and asked "could you get me a milk, miss juicebox?").  i really don't mind being called "miss juicebox" nor to i mind, when zed sits on cassidy's name at circle, calling him "cassidy."  it cracks them up and is pretty harmless.  however, these kids watch a lot a lot a lot of television and so also use names like "jackwagon" (from the geico commercial), wholly unaware of the meaning.  i try to correct without scolding and/or laughing, but have you ever heard a four-year-old call another four-year-old a "jackwagon" in an endearing tone?  i challenge you not to laugh.

enjoy :)

wait, what?

i have a week and a half left of student teaching (plus a week of observation in other rooms, but that doesn't really count as "teaching" in my opinion).  that must be a lie.  not possible.  for real.  where did the time go????  it's freaking me out.  not that i feel like i am still new in the room - on the contrary, it has become really routine.  it's awesome.  but i'm bummed that i won't be with these kids for much longer.  there are certainly bad days (today was pretty rough, in fact) but even the bad days have been fairly good.  today was "pretty rough" because one of my kiddos was in a funk, and another (who has autism) was having a hard time when i told her to go to another teacher (as opposed to me) for help.  which leads to the next issue ...

... fading me out.  there are a couple of kids who ask for me when i even just step out to use the restroom, so getting them used to me not being here at all is going to be tough.  and something i can't exactly help with.  i've been trying to refer them to the other teachers when they come to me or ask for me, with varying degrees of success (see earlier comment about my friend with autism), so that will be my next trick.  we'll see ...

story time

today i had my kids draw pictures.  one of them proceeded to tell me a story about the picture she had drawn.  it was of a boy with a circle on his arm, with a car in the background.  she said he had broken his arm when that car, who had brought him there, ran him over.  so now he had a cast. 

i was so impressed with the thought she had put into her drawing (bizarre as it may be) so i asked the other kids to tell me about their drawings, and i wrote them down.  here is a selection for your enjoyment:

"the flower growed till he got taller.  leaves grew out of him and then he was tall."

"once there was an alien that had a big afro.  he lived in a planet called 'space' where aliens live.  he had a friend who's name was kambeadacle.  he could dunk.  he used to play basketball when he was a little kid."

"once there was a princess who lived in a castle that had a queen that could play basketball and had a little baby sister that played basketball in her dress.  her name was miss [my name].  she lived in a castle that had a flying horse that was pink that liked rainbows that shined after it rained, and had a stuffed animal.  miss [my name] played with samantha (it wasn't the same miss [my name] because she was black)."

oh hey.

so last week was spring break.  and it was glorious.  a couple of years ago i had the flu over break (like, the whole week); this was about a million times better than that.  got caught up on sleep, spent some time with family, lots of time with friends, and cleaned my apartment.  then yesterday it dawned on me that i had to wake up early and get back to work this morning.  i was pumped to see my kids, but let me tell you: i forgot how hard it is to wake up early.  oof.

thankfully, my kids all came in bright and chipper today.  one little one was feeling especially chatty, and proclaimed that he likes mexican girls.  he proceeded to explain that his dad likes mexican girls, so he likes mexican girls too.  he also told me he found a dollar and couldn't wait to buy something with it, like a "cool hat."  amazing.  they were all genuinely happy to be back in school, which made getting back from break much, much easier.  we even got some things accomplished today!

break was so impossibly lovely (even if the weather wasn't), but the fact that today i don't hate everything getting back to work i find incredibly reassuring - this must be the right profession for me.