yep, it's one of those days.

Emmy, hamming it up for the computer camera.

Or maybe one of those weeks.
Or maybe one of those months.
It could even be one of those years. I can't tell yet, since we're only into the second month.

(Ugh.)

We have not gone a week without someone in our small family getting sick. I brought in the New Year with pink eye and strep (3 bouts with each, 3's a charm, eh?). Little Bibi developed an ear infection a week ago. And Dear Hubby came down with strep throat on Sunday. Now Emmy's complaining about her ear.

(Check my tonsils mommy.)

My "not a classroom" finally turned into a classroom on Monday. PP said, "It's done but the workers left a mess in there." Nobody wanted to clean it up. I said, "can I have classes in there? I'll move the junk." "Yes" she replied.

(Phooy to those messes.)

So 2 classrooms of kids, 1 student teacher and I got it cleaned out. We moved yucky tables, 1 shop vac and some leftover plywood. We pushed junk shelves and unwanted boxes out into the hall. The kids popped the furnace vents on. They helped me move the majority of the music stuff, including 4 carts of instruments, 6 drums, a cart full of textbooks, a desk, a rug and a puppet stage. They were angels whose enthusiam knows no bounds. They said how nice it was not to have to push carts anymore after music class. They thought the purple paint was cool. I passed out "good coupons" to all.

(Sweet Angels)

And then there was the crap we couldn't throw out: comments that I'd be shoveling the path to, and cleaning the annex because I moved in before it was opened "officially" and it wasn't in anyone's contract. Everyone whose anyone in the school had an opinion to share, about the state of the renovated bldg., about the kids traveling to an outside bldg., about what should have been done better, about that d@m purple paint on the wall. My magic phrase became, "You're going to have to talk to the PP about that."

(The Boss)

The kids and I set up the instruments, hopefully never to be moved again, or at least for the next 4 months. I pounded a new makeshift peg into my Bass Xylophone, one of the casulties of demolition derby cart riding. I was just in the process of moving some shelves when the teachers'  aerobics group came in and wanted to hold their after school class in there. I felt like the Little Red Hen. "Who wants to help thresh the wheat? Who wants to help grind the grain? Who wants to help make the bread?" "Not me! Not me! Not me!" Who wants to eat the bread? Me! Me! Me! 

Nope. Not. going. to. happen. 

I'm not on their christmas card list for next year. 

Tales From The Crypt. Well, not really....

But tales from work, which can be considered the crypt in an imaginative sort of way...

I'm left wondering if the "Alberta Clipper" has anything to do with the strange behavior: 

Kid running down hall gets stabbed by pencil held by another kid. Has to leave school early to get tetanus shot.

What's up with that? Apparently it was an accident. How do you get stabbed with someone else's pencil when you're running? And why are you running anyway? Don't you know running in the hallway is dangerous? Oh, I get it. Rules are just for sissies. 

I can predict your future. And it's full of numerous "Hey guys, watch this!"

                            

*****

My husband asked if that happened under my watch. No, but unfortunately the next incident did. 

Kid sitting in chair cuts holes in new jeans with someone else's scissors. 

Okay, what is this with "someone else's" stuff. I think "someone else" needs to have his stuff confiscated. I have no defense for this other than we were watching the Sound of Music (figured I could show a movie as easily as a sub could, so I went back to work) and I did not see him with scissors. The kids told me. He cut various holes in his pants, one dangerously close to his crotch. 

"Kid With Scissors," I said to him, "What do you think your mom is going to say when she sees your pants? Do you think she's going to be happy?...or angry?....Yeah, she's gonna be angry." 

Later I glance over, from my somewhat closer perch. "Kid With New Crotch Hole in Pants (real name excluded), quit ripping that hole or your pants aren't going to be so private anymore." Sigh. 

*****

Kindergartner forges parents signature on homework page. 

My daughter, my own sweet daughter...I asked her all weekend if she had homework. No ma. Tuesday morning, at school, she pulls her homework folder out of her backpack. Homework! Undone!

"Emmy! You need to finish this! And then I'll sign your folder."

I go to her room a few minutes later. "Where's your folder?"

"I turned it in Mom." 

"But I didn't sign it!"

"That's okay Mom. I signed it for you." Oh no. 

Sure enough, on the folder, in the correct spaces she signed "Mom". 

Later we discussed that there are some things that only mommies and daddies can sign.

*****

 

Finally, a funny moment today, made even funnier because I didn't "get it" until my drive home from work today. Once again, it involved my dear sweet daughter Emmy.

In music kindergarten is learning a simple rhythm pattern with a rest at the end. This happened to be my daughter's kindergarten class. I showed them my pretty picture cards with clapping hands and a rest drawn in at the end.

I point to the rest and ask, "Who knows what a rest is?"

My sweet daughter is the only one to raise her hand. Well, I think, she's already seen rests in her piano music, so of course she knows what a rest is. 

"Okay Emmy, what's a rest?"

"It's when you go to jail." 

?!?  :-)

*****