KIDS, I love 'em but they make me CRAZY!!!

Okay so I've had a rough teacher day, and I need to vent, keep reading if you find crazy things kids to entertaining....

First I need to start by saying I love being a teacher, it is without a doubt my calling in life (besides the obvious wife and mother...you know!) I've wanted to be a teacher since I was in Third grade, and here I am teaching 3rd grade! Who knew! I love it, it's inspiring, it's so fun I love to play/teach 8 year olds! They are too much fun!

So now I can proceed to to vent without you thinking what the heck are you doing being a teacher if it's so rotten! I really do love it except for today I wish I were at home in my jammies!

We had our first snow of the season at school today. Snow is really fun and beautiful and pretty to look at blah blah blah, it makes kids act out like crazy!!! When it snows it's like they could all be lined up and given Ritalin to achieve normalcy, I knew i should have stayed home today...let me give you a glimpse of my 3rd grade class...

I have a small class, 21 kids is a dream come true and I"m living it up this year because I know it's not likely to ever happen again in my career. I have the usual mix of girly girls who love to help the teacher (THAT WAS ME TO A 'T' WHEN I WAS 8 :) ) I have some sporty boys and some sci-fi boys and some tom-boys and i have some precocious little people who know far more about life than any 8 year old should have to....about divorce and separation and drug abuse and prison, and what happens when you don't pay your taxes and why Daddy stays at Grandma's house now and why "my big sister is 14 and has to be grounded forever because she's gonna have a baby" and why baby sister has to get medical treatments every week so she'll stay alive etc... So life is hard but it's so heartbreaking when kids have to learn that stuff when they're 8.

I get really grossed out when kids pick their noses and wipe it around the classroom, I mean really grossed out, but it comes with the territory I guess. I've got some real gold diggers this year, and some of them are so sweet they don't wipe their snotty buggers anywhere...they eat em! It's like clockwork at the beginning of they day we have a morning meeting and they pick and eat. After lunch recess we read a story at the rug and they pick and eat. I am so cruel. I'm sick of it, so lately when I catch a kid picking and eating I stop my story to say DJ are you hungry? "No" he says surprised, "well do you need a tissue?" "no" and if they don't catch on by then I ask them to please sit on their hands. Okay that's only happened a few times, I feel too guilty even though none of the other kids know why I am asking such strange questions. Man I hate buggers!

So I also have some other kinds of crazy kids in my class, well today was a doosey! I have a little boy who I will call Drew. Drew poops his pants. At School. Drew cannot smell it when he poops his pants, doctors say it's like a smoker who can't smell the smell of smoke. Drew can't tell when he has to poop. Drew Doesn't mind sitting in it. Drew gives Mrs Lance a headache every day around 1:30. Mrs lance privately asks Drew to change his pants into the clean ones he has in his backpack. This happens about once maybe twice a week. Kids ask Drew why he's wearing different pants than the ones he wore to school that day...he turns bright red and says nothing (is your heart broken yet...so sad I know!) Drews parents take him to the doctor but they don't know why he poops his pants. I don't know why he poops his pants either. But I wish he didn't!

Okay then there's my favorite of the day...I'll call him Carl. Carl is a slower kid, he's actually very bright but lacks fine motor skills and can't keep at one task for longer than, well about 20 seconds. He thinks pencils are swords and he'll brake them all so he can get up and sharpen them to get out of doing his work. He eats paper. He sleeps half of the day. At rug time he loves to pick at his shoe and eat whatever he can get off. Today I cleaned out his desk and talked with him about where his crayons and glue belong, and where his math and science journal belong. ETC.... Well I found a nickel and a penny in Carls desk today, and gave them to him and said put them in your pocket if I see them again, they're mine. I see them in about 30 seconds, I give him a warning, another 10 seconds and they're out...another warning, not 10 seconds more and I say put them on my desk (this is all in the middle of a spectacular lesson I was giving about how the Ute Indians governed themselves --by the way) I count to three because he wants to put them back in his pocket, knowing I'm REALLY serious this time, but I count to three, which is like magic, he grumbles and grunts probably swearing at me under his breath and slaps the coins on my desk. Lesson finishes, recess time, 15 minutes later back at the rug for a project description. Suddenly I see the coins, they catch my eye and without skipping a beat in my lesson I tell Carl to put them back on my desk, that little devil took them off my desk! He puts back the nickel, and I'm still teaching, but only the nickel...then he starts crying Carl I say, the penny too, and he just cries. I decide to continue with the directions and deal with the penny later. He's still crying and starts sneezing....oh boy, he's mumbling under his breath something and a child interrupts my lesson and says "MRS LANCE! You said we could interrupt to tattle on someone if someones in danger or if someones hurt, and Carl keeps saying he can't get his penny out!" Out of what Shaylie? I ask "HIS NOSE!"

Now what on earth do you do? I was rescued by a specialist teacher coming in at just the right time to teach my class about bullies. So I escort the little snot...(I'm so funny) to the office where we proceed to tell the Principal what happened, she calls his mother, father, grandma, grandpa, and the father again before she gets a hold of anyone, Dad comes to pick him up, and take him to the hospital, yes it was REALLY far up there!

Sheesh! Pennies in our noses and Poop in our pants, hey that sounds like the title of a really great book. Or the story of my life...

Some of these things are typical, some are not, but they're all pretty funny. I feel better now that I've let it all out.

A few pics of this years class, they are so cute!

My Girls on National "Talk Like a Pirate Day"
My boys on the very same wonderful day
Arrrgghh! Shiver me timbers, it's me on Talk like a pirate day, I am such a weirdo!
We had a reception for my class at school since they couldn't come to the reception in Logan, they loved it, I taught them a whole course on manners and handshakes and introducing people, it was so cute!
On Halloween, me reading a few kids a spooky story, I am Pippi Longstocking, wish you could really see my costume :)