A rough day was had by all. In the words of my almost 16 year old, when I asked her how her day was, she said, “It sucked.” Allow me to elaborate a bit.
Today my assignment was in first grade and John and Jenna’s school. I hadn’t yet subbed for this particular teacher, but she never seemed really friendly when I would see her at school, so I didn’t know what to expect. Imagine my surprise when the class was well behaved and quiet. Until the pm group arrived at 9:15. You see, our school is an extended day school, where half of the kids come at 8:00 and do reading and writing with a smaller group. They are called the early birds. The ‘later gators’ come at 9:15. When the early birds go home at 2:15, the late kids stay and do their small group reading and writing. Guess how many kids want to do reading and writing after half of their class goes home? None. I’m just sayin.
Anyway, things were still going reasonably well, but one girl straggled in late, wearing pajama pants and slippers. She dragged around, telling me how she did not feel good, but that her mom said she couldn’t miss work one more day or she would get fired. Too much information, little girl. While the kids were in the library, I stopped in at the office, and mentioned that I had a little girl who was dragging around acting like she was sick, but her mom was at work. Office lady knew EXACTLY who I was talking about, and told me that this child was always acting sick, and her mom had laid down the law and wasn’t going to let her play wolf again. Hmmm. With that information, I stopped feeling bad for this poor little girl, and saw her as the manipulator that she probably is.
At math time, this little girl just sat with her head on the desk NOT doing any work. But at least she was quiet. Another boy in the room wouldn’t do any of his work AND his main goal in life seemed to be to misbehave and disrupt the rest of the class. How had I not noticed him before? Oh, he was at off with an aid or special rescourse teacher. We made it to lunch, but the principal announced that it would be a shortened recess day, because of the cold temp and the STRONG wind. So, that’s 10 minutes less time for lunch for me. After lunch, this little girl followed me around complaining of how sick she was, and that no one would play with her. When it was reading time, she curled up on a couple of bean bags and ‘fell asleep’. I wasn’t sure if she was really sleeping, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to let her sleep through my science lesson.
At about the time when the early birds left to go home, that is when the day started to fall apart. Little sick girl decides it’s time to up her sick quotient, and throws up on the floor. Oh, great. Either she wasn’t faking, or she can make herself throw up. The kids who ventured over to look at it closely said it looked like she had been eating crayons. Whatever, I’m staying right over here. Why don’t you go into the bathroom? I asked her. No, I’m ok, she said. What? Go in the bathroom and wash you face and hands, I instructed, and then you can go to the office and call home. Let the office deal with her, right? All the kids are EXTREMELY fascinated by this turn of events, and when the janitor comes, there was not ONE little one reading, I can tell you that.
Meanwhile, I looked at my phone and saw a text from Cole that said “John is bleeding and he banged up his lip. What should we do?” It is times like this when I feel like I am certainly in the wrong place. I should be home, helping my OWN CHILD who got hurt right as he was leaving school, not stuck at school dealing with another child’s throw up. I covertly texted him back (since teachers aren’t supposed to be using cell phones at school, either) and told him to use some ice in a bag on the injury, and I would be home in an hour. He texted back a few minutes later and assured me that John was fine, he had calmed down and was watching tv. I am SO thankful that Cole didn’t have to stay late after school today. Usually he’s not home until 4 or so, but today he must have gotten home at about the same time as John and Jenna got home.
To keep this post from getting TOO long, the barf got cleaned up. Sick girl went home. Obnoxious boy did ZERO work, except for one sentence that I forced him to write while the other kids wrote 8 sentences in their journals. I came home to see my boy looking like this.
It got him out of piano lessons today, and he seems like he will recover. With a little neosporin and some Band-aids he’ll be just fine.
My red chicken coop, looks like this.
(please excuse the quality of this picture, it’s taken from the house, through a window.)
Some strong winds hit these parts. Ugh. I’m trying to get the chicks and chickens all taken care of so that we can leave them for spring break, and now this happens?
At times like this I think of one of my favorite children’s books, Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse,
and when her favorite teacher, Mr. Slinger, says,
“Today was a difficult day.
Tomorrow will be better.’
-Mr. Slinger”
Kevin Henkes, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse
Or, as Howard Jones sings, Things can only get better.
Now, if you excuse me, I have to go make dinner, and see if I can find out why the teenager’s day sucked. Wish me luck.
I would tend to agree–it was a very bad day! Ours wasn’t that great either. Had to call the plumber to fix the garbage disposal that had something stuck in it, and we couldn’t get the printer to work. He took it to the store and it worked there, so he brought it back home and it wouldn’t work again. He took it back again and they sent it to their repair shop to see if they can figure it out. Good news, though, it shouldn’t cost any money. Bad news–it may not work here when we bring it back. Strange!
Some days are like that… and you tell it so well. I feel sorry for the little girl. Kids who “fake” sick all the time generally have more issues to deal with than anyone knows. Especially if she DID eat crayons to get sick. Things are not good in her world.
Sorry about John’s face…tell him that the chicks dig that kind of thing?
I’ve had days like that. One particularly bad day, I sat down and read “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” to the kids. Well, I tried to read it, and ended up crying through most of it because the day had been that bad. Sorry you had such a bad day, but some days are like that, even in Australia.