Kiddies times five

When I was a young student in grade school, I thought that teachers never went to the bathroom, and that they never ate. After all, they're teachers. That makes them only half human. But then I discovered that it wasn't true.

I found myself on the other end of the spectrum. Now I know why teachers don't eat in front of students. (Besides for one teacher I had who actually ate lunch with us. I watched her try to eat soup through perfectly lipsticked lips, and that's when I knew I never wanted to wear lipstick. It looked very difficult.) It makes the kids jealous. I tried to eat snack today in front of the kids. They wanted some. I guess everything is more desirable when a teacher is eating it.

I found myself in the land of the kiddies again. If you read this post, you'll remember the kids I taught last year for 3 days. This was the same group of kids. I substituted again. They haven't changed much. But it's funny to watch kids grow. I feel accomplished, like I actually taught them something. Made a difference.

They are cute kids. One girl gasps after every word she says, it makes me laugh. Her sentences end up coming out sounding something like: "Morah- but she- already- had a- tuuurn. And she- said- I couldn't- share!" It's funnier when you hear it.

Theres the leader of the pack, who won't listen and talks back. She's the kind of kid that the teachers describe as having a 'very strong personality' to say it in nice terms.

There's one boy in all the girls. He's nice and well behaved.

One girl that bursts into tears at the littlest thing. You need lots of patience with her. But she's cute.

And one girl who's an angel and lives in her own little world. Always smiling, and when the other kids aren't nice to her she doesn't even notice.

See- I can't be a teacher. Or a parent. It's only been 2 days and already I've categorized and labeled them, and even have a favorite. You're supposed to look at kids as 'little flowers with lots of room to grow', as I hear. Hmmmm.

Funny story- we were doing an arts n crafts using glue. I have fond memories of glue in school. We would spread a thin layer on our hands during class, then when it dried peel it off starting with a hole in the center and rolling it over and over so you end up with a glue bracelet. Or we would just have fun peeling it off. So I stupidly decided to do that. But I put to much on one hand and I wanted it to dry faster, so I rubbed both hands together. Now I had two gluey hands. Then I was waving them around and blowing on them to get them to dry faster, and I kept thinking, you idiot, what if one of the kids needs something, or theres an emergancy, and your hands are occupied? Anyway, it dried and i peeled it off and I learned my lesson- do not have fun with glue while taking care of kids.

One of the kids came in with her shoes on the wrong feet. classic case of 'look-at-me-i'm-a-big-girl-who-dresses-myself.' I gently pointed out her mistake, to which she said, 'it's okay, I don't care.'

And then during gym there's these big bins that they use to store the balls. So the kids turned them over and hid under them, then took turns pushing the bins with kids underneath. And then there was a moving bin all by itself. It looked quite funny.

All in all it was a very very exhausting but fulfilling 2 days. Besides for the part where I drove home and got lost and got back and hour later than schedule. Stupid unreliable GPS. But now I can do highway driving without my heart pounding. During the day at least.

Oh and the best part- during coloring time the kids have this thing where they all want to copy eachother. Then there's always the kid who's not nice and says certain kids can't copy her paper. I kept pointing out that a) you should be original and not copy someone elses drawing, which they didn't buy and b) copying is the highest form of flattery. To which one kid answered 'ya but if she doesn't want anyone to copy her, then it's not nice.' I finally got fed up and said, 'okay Morah will color the paper, and you could copy me.' That made the kid happy. Then I told her, you color your picture by yourself and I will copy you. She liked that even better. Until all the kids got it in their heads that they wanted morah to copy them. But my paper was all colored. Oh well.

Wow coloring was fun. And as I told the kids, you don't have to color in the lines cuz we're cutting it out anyway. The truth is, I have no patience for lines. Or coloring.

Kids. They are a funny bunch.