Language Barrier

My son and I were walking slowly out of the school building yesterday. Darling son was playing his personal gaming device of the moment. A cutie-pie kindergartner walked past us going the opposite direction and I heard him say, "buenos dias" as he walked by. Ah, how sweet I thought to myself - what a groovy, multi-cultural school we have. Sigh with grin.

Of course I said "buenos dias" back to him, albeit a little delayed. My son then looked at me oddly and said in that know-it all middle-schooler tone, "Mom, he said, 'Nice DS!'"

I cackled all the way out of the building, promptly embarrassing the cool middle-schooler with the "nice DS." Maybe time to get my hearing checked??? or take some Spanish lessons!

Middle School Boredom Gone Awry

Today: I'm awaiting my son's arrival at my school via carpool so that I can zip over to a meeting on the other side of town. In walks 12 year old. He is complaining to me about a problem at dismissal, a girl keeps trying to take his bookbag. "Wait. What is on your upper lip?" I say. "Oh, he he he. A mustache." "Why do you have a blue Bic mustache?" Twelve year old responds, "I was bored."

So I finish listening to his story about the bookbag kidnapper. Then I ask him to please get rid of the mustache because we're headed to a education meeting with people I'd like to keep working for and bringing a 12 year old with a blue mustache might not be the best career-advancing move for me. Luckily the mustache did wash off.

I was amused how little the mustache bothered the twelve year old. How strange that an age when most are uber self concious, my son bravely models a blue mustache! I only regret that I was in such a rush to get to the meeting that I didn't take a picture. :-( Would have been great for the "rehearsal dinner photo montage" when/if someday he gets married!

Third Grade Night at the Roxbury

So I'm teaching a lesson in Social Studies up at the board. I finish writing on the board and turn around to see one student in the front of the classroom bobbing his head to a silent beat only beknownst to him. "How odd," I think. I continue my lesson and write something else on the board. A minute later I look back at the class and now there are three students bobbing their heads to the same silent beat. All of a sudden I have a vision of the "Night at the Roxbury" SNL skit. Never mind that these are third graders who are doing the head bobbing and most likely have never seen that skit nor have probably heard of SNL since it's not on Nickelodeon. Here's a link if you need to refresh your memory of SNL days gone by. Needless to say it was hard for me to give those 3 students the evil teacher eye to stop the head bobbing. After class my student teacher and I were able to laugh hysterically about it. Luckily she had seen the SNL skit.

The Many Uses of Ziplock

My 12 year old son returned today from a boy scout camping trip in the frigid cold of the northern outreaches of our state. He came back with almost all of the stuff we sent him off with, and didn't get in trouble, so we decided it was a successful trip. Plus they'll get a polar bear patch because it got below freezing - snowed even. The humor lies (luckily for a change) in the tale of my son's pal. To protect his identity, as I'm sure his parents will appreciate I'll call him "Jay." In the middle of the night last night my son and Jay who were sharing a tent swear they heard either a cougar or bear rubbing up against their tent. (Gee, now maybe they'll take heed when told to not keep any food in their tent!) Poor Jay found himself in the predicament of needing to go to the bathroom and yet too scared to go outside of the tent per the bear or cougar roaming around. So, being the resourceful scout that he is he made quick use of a ziplock bag. The punchline is that he toted the bag full of pee back home with him in his pack - a four hour drive. The expression was priceless in seeing his dad's face when Jay told him that he'd toted the pee back in his pack. My husband and I just grinned, glad that for once the parental groaning was from someone other than us!

Oh How Cute

Oh, how I cute I thought. They're having a "Wee Day" at the pub! Kids eat free or Irish entertainment for munchkins, etc. Or perhaps someone meant "Wii." This was exactly what I thought when I glanced at this sign.

Only as I walked around the corner and saw a correct sign did I realize I must spend too much time around kids to not realize what the sign was trying to say...
Gee, I miss grown-ups.

Squeaky Clean

I, like most elementary school teachers, keep a junk drawer (and cabinet) where all the odds and ends I take away from students throughout the year are kept. Items are babysat in the aforementioned locations either until the end of the class, day or sometimes until the last day of school. But like most kids, and teachers, a number of items get forgotten.

My son was cleaning out one such junk drawer for me after the end of the school year. He organized items I actually wanted to keep in the drawer like pens and sticky notes. He also came across the random stretchy bracelet, matchbox car or gum ball machine jewelry and asked me what he should do with it. Of course it all went in the trash. One item was more random than the preceding ones however. He pulled out a nice, clean, seemingly unused, bar of soap. Not a little tiny one that you steal from a hotel, but a large, regular size bar. I had totally forgotten about that bar of soap. And no, despite what you're thinking, it was not used for washing mouths out.

I remember one of my students holding a bar of soap during class activities. I remember asking her about it. She said it was from home. She'd been cleaning her bathroom at home and just slipped it into her pocket and forgot about it. Yep, that's what I do when I'm cleaning in the bathroom, just put any items I have to clean under in my pocket! Not!

I told her to put it away and take it back home. However, the soap kept reappearing at different times, days and locations in the classroom. Pet soap maybe? Maybe there's a marketing niche there? Who knows. I kept the soap. It was such an odd item to see a student with after so many toys, jewelry, gel pens, etc. etc. Just thought I'd share...

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