kids

my day started when i got a call from the office that there was a parent that had a "concern" and wanted to speak with me. turns out that on friday, one of my students cut off another one of my student's EYELASHES. (yes, eyelashes.) i vaguely knew about this, because after work on friday..i got a call from a coworker who left me a message to let me know that the music teacher came to see her to tell her one of my students was missing his eyelashes. (jesus christ.) she didn't go into detail on the message, but let's just say i pretty much forgot about it over the weekend with everything else i had going on. therefore, today, i was somewhat blindsided when i had to deal with this first thing on a rainy monday morning.

before you get all "how could you as the teacher not see something like this happen?!" on me, let me explain something to you: when you are teacher, especially of the kindergarten variety...you take on many (many) roles during the day. i don't just teach kids to read, write, and do 'rithmatic. i am a nurse, a comedian, a part time mom, a counselor, a referee, a ring leader...and sometimes a clown. and so, when this child was giving another child an eyelash haircut...i could've been doing many different things; such as but not limited to, putting on a bandaid, telling a joke, giving out a hug, teaching letter sounds, tying a shoe or wiping a nose. this all being said, i still felt horrible that this happened under my watch...and even more horrible that i didn't know anything about it until friday evening after school.

as i mother, i can see how you would be concerned when a child's scissors are in direct contact with your child's eyeballs. this is not good. however, when i was called down to the office and got a gander of that little boy batting his eyelids sans eyelashes at me...i had to bite firmly down on my lip to avoid a shit storm of laughter from escaping my mouth. (he looks absolutely ridiculous.) when the culprit was asked why he did it, he said, "because i wanted to see what he would look like without eyelashes!!" (he was pretty pumped about his answer.) i explained that we can't just go around all willy nilly using scissors to cut things because we want to see what things will look like. (the principal was biting her lip at this point.) kids do this stuff not because they are malicious...they are just naturally curious and don't have much regard for consequences. (his mother was acting like it was a 5 year old hate crime. relax, lady.) furthermore, the other little boy admitted that he, too, wanted see what he would look like without eyelashes as well...so he just let the other boy do it. (well, kid, you look absolutely ridiculous.) anyway, this was the start of my day...explaining to children why we don't cut each other's eyelashes off, and explaining to the parent why it wasn't a hate crime. (what were you doing at 8am?)

prior to this all happening, in the (very) early morning hours...we said goodbye to my inlaws who were in town for the past couple of days. a couple of things happened during their time at our place (other than my kids getting some major quality time with them..) first off, on thursday when my mother in law was babysitting the the girls, she accidentally filled ella's sippy cup with...boilo. (if you just gasped, i assure you that my reaction was probably 100x more dramatic than yours.) boilo is moonshine. it has high amounts of high test booze in it. that being said, it is not for 2 year old consumption. (ever.) most of our boilo supply is in our kegerator, but there was one 1/2 gallon in the fridge. it is labeled ever so hill billy deluxe style with duct tape. (see below.) it was in the fridge sideways, so she didn't see the deluxe duct tape label. ella took one sip, knew something was terribly wrong and yelled, "THROW IT OUTTTT!!!!!!!" so my mother in law did dump it down the drain and then filled up the sippy cup...with more boilo. ella refused to drink it. (THANK GOD.)

we didn't realize something was up until i came home from work and she said, "ella refused to drink any of her juice today!?" this is very strange...because my child is a (diluted) juice junky. she drinks it all day long. i looked over an hour later, saw the cloudy concoction in her cup and knew what had happened. (holy shit.) i thought my mother in law was going to either puke or pass out when i told her that it wasn't apple juice in ella's cup...it was a little bit of grandpa's cough medicine. praise jesus that my child does not have a taste for boilo at her wee age, or we all coulda been at the ER with a lot of 'splanin to do. needless to say, all of the boilo is out of the fridge now and we have a story to tell ella on her 21st birthday. (i'm convinced this would've only happened in my house. sheesh.)

along with the boilo incident, both of my children have been taking turns waking up in the middle of the night the entire time my inlaws were here. ella was sick, so snot was her enemy...making her unable to breathe well while lying down and carrie decided that after a month of not eating during the night, that she wanted to go back to having a little midnight snackaroo. (could be a growth spurt, i know.) so i did not get much rest over the past 5 days and i am also riding the red railroad. (i have one foot on the border of crazyville.) as i sat down to write about my day...ella stumbled into the room with a bucket on her head. (earlier i received a text from the sitter that she was walking around with a basket on her head.) so this may be her new fun obsession...weird things as hats. (awesomeeeee!)

                                               

                    

i guess the moral of this long story is this...i love (and have always loved) children. whether it be my own two goofballs at home, or the children i spend my school days with...i appreciate each and everyone one of them. i love their sense of wonder and how much fun they are...even if it means they are cutting off each other's eyelashes or a wearing an assortment of weird hats. also, kids are so goddamn hysterical. a mother of two grown children told me to start writing down the funny stuff that comes out of my first born's mouth in a notebook, to read as she gets older. i haven't started doing it yet, but i need to...because at least once a day i am cracking up at something she has said. likewise, a former kindergarten teacher told me to do the same thing with my kids at school...and i have started doing that on a daily basis. and so my days with children like today (that started with an eyelash incident and ended with a bucket for a hat) seem very long, but the years that have passed seem so incredibly short. the only thing we can do is hold on for dear life...and keep laughing, because (unfortunately) this rollercoaster is not slowing down for anyone.