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Thursday, January 29, 2009

Bears, Bears, and More Bears

The past three weeks of kindergarten have been devoted to the theme of Bears. We have learned about real bears and pretend bears and done really cool activities throughout. Tomorrow the culmination of the bears unit will be celebrated by the highly-anticipated Teddy Bear Party. In preparation for this event, I have been pulling the kids one-by-one over to my desk to do a Teddy Bear interview. Basically it's just a sheet I fill out for them based on answers to questions about themselves and the chosen bear. I ask them how old they are and then how old their teddies are, what their favorite food is and then what their teddy's favorite food is...you get the idea. In general, the responses have been pretty basic, but you always have those two or three kids who catch you off guard with something hilarious.
When one girl was asked, "What's your favorite game?" It was an automatic, "Candyland" response. But when asked, "What's your teddy's favorite game?" she had to think for a minute. Finally she said, "Chess."
I asked another girl, "Who's your favorite person?" "My mommy," she said. "Who's your bear's favorite person?" "God."
Now, when asking these questions I tried to use the bear's given name as much as possible in an attempt to add that "personal" touch. This was all well and good until I asked one little guy his bear's name and he made a buzzing noise. I said, "Oh, why did you name your bear that?" He told me his bear is dressed in a bumble bee suit. Yeah. So, for the whole ten questions I had to try to use "Bzzzz" in the third person. The same kid also told me his bear's favorite t.v. show is, "Recording to Jim."
Well, needless to say, tomorrow is bound to be a fun-filled day! I'll keep you posted!

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Part 2

So, remember when I blogged like two months ago about my preschool days? Well, I made the mistake of saying that I was going to do something like write 10 blogs in a row to share my top ten favorite kid moments. Hopefully you weren't holding your breath. Here's #2 and #3.

#2 December 2, 2006 was one of the best days ever. It was the day that Dameon shocked my socks off and proposed! Now, as you probably know, the aftermath of an engagement is such an exciting frenzy. You get to make like a million phone calls to inform all your loved ones of your newly-changed status. It's so great! Well, we got engaged on a Saturday, so I had a whole day to contemplate how I would share the big news with my 3 and 4-year-old munchkins. I figured it would make the most sense to tell them first thing in the morning while they were all seated for calendar time. That way I wouldn't run the risk of one finding out, then passing it on to a few more, leaving some to be in the dark possibly all the way until nap time or something! Right??
It wasn't until I actually made my big announcement that it occured to me that a child of this age would have NO IDEA what I was talking about, more or less have an emotional reaction to it. I literally had butterflies in my stomach as we drudged through our 17 "Good Mornings" and the weather report. I can't even remember exactly what I said, but the gist of it was something like, "This weekend I had something very exciting happen to me. My boyfriend asked me to marry him. We are going to get married in the summer!" I guess I expected them to like "oooo" and "ahhh" and come up to give me hugs or something. Why I thought that would ever happen, I have no idea. It was like one of those moments where you could actually hear the crickets chirp. Yeah, awkward.
So, anyway, that's not even the #2 moment. That was all just building the foundation. (Sorry.)
Alright, so about two weeks went by same as always, until one day at lunch. I was sitting next to a sweet little three-year-old girl. Out of the blue (which most three-year-old conversation starters usually are) she said, "Miss Myers, my mommy told me you're getting married." "Yes, I am," I said. She thought for a few seconds and then said, "What kind of a prince are you gonna marry?"
Yes, I practically melted into a puddle.

#3
Several of my favorite moments came from the same child. I haven't written about this little guy yet, but I'm sure he will be included in several blogs to come. For confidentiality's sake, I'm going to call him "Bob."
Bob was one of those kids you just hate to love. He's got quite a bit of trouble up his sleep, but his personality and quirkiness is just so darn cute that you can't help but be thankful for everyday you get a chance to spend time with him. I miss this kid quite a bit.
Anyway, one morning while dropping him off for school, Bob's mother informed me that he woke up with a bit of a stomach ache. I was supposed to keep an eye on it and make sure to let her know if it got too much worse. Well, the morning went fine...no problems, at all. That afternoon, as Bob's group was sitting at my reading table, we suddenly jumped out of his chair and darted out the door. At that school, the bathroom was a good distance down the hall. Right away, I knew where he was headed. I took off after him, so that I could be there to clean up whatever mess might be waiting. When I reached the bathroom, I stood at my usual post right outside the bathroom entrance and bent down to look under the stall. I could see his feet dangling and ALL his clothes on the floor. (So weird because I literally ran out right after him. He must have been undressing as he ran or something??) The fact that all his clothes were on the floor didn't really alarm me because this was common practice for this kid everytime he had to do his business. None the less, I needed to check in with him to see what was going on.
"Bob, are you okay?" I say. "Yes." comes his response.
Now the odor is starting to waft (waft?) out into the hallway.
ME: "Do you need clean underwear?"
-----no response------
ME: "Bob, do you need me to get you some clean underwear?"
Bob: "Yep."
ME: "Okay. Did you poop in your pants?"
The response that was about to come out is one that will forever go down in history, just so you know. It was one of those "I almost have to email this recap to Dameon from work because I might burst if I have to wait a whole three hours to tell him face-to-face" moments.

Bob: "Yep. Wet fart."

AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! I had to double-over in hallway from laughing so hard. And, if you're wondering, I did decide to wait the three hours in order to recap it in full detail (voices and all) for Dameon. I figured it would be funnier that way.