September 24: The late pick up kids were playing pretend grocery. Celeste bought an assortment of plastic foods, which Valerye rung up at the fake cash register. Valerye handed Celeste her change in pretend coins. Celeste stared at a phony penny intensely. “Hello, Mr. Lincoln,” she said to the coin. “I haven’t seen you since you were assassinated.”
September 25: Everyone’s cellphones beeped to alert us to Bill Cosby’s sentence as a convicted sex offender. I saw a book on our shelf that was written by Bill Cosby and titled “My Big Lie”, a book about how lying is always bad. Jen took it fro me to snapchat the irony.
September 26: Today, a student in the kinder class whose name I don’t know approached me in the playground. “Ms. Heather, I have some milk for you,” he said. Then he proceeded to pull two cartons of milk out of his pants pocket. How he managed to fit those in there is a mystery.
September 27: Ana has been receiving and typing up the forms turned in for our after school program. Today, she found one where the parents got confused at the race question. They checked “other” and wrote in “purple”.
September 28: Every single child complained at the slime party.
“It’s too hard. Look,” they said. Then they threw their ball of slime onto the cafeteria table and watched it bounce.
“If you don’t like it, I’ll take it,” I said.
Every time, they pulled their slime back protectively. “No,” they said. “I’ll keep it.”
September 29: Our new neighbor keeps a chair in her bay window. It’s where she likes to read. Today, she let us know that Addie spends all day sitting in our window vigilantly watching her read and barking every time she moves.
September 30: Cheddar can be a verb. It is a part of the cheese making process where you cut up cheese curds while they are still warm and fermenting. You salt the sections and stack them like Jenga pieces over and over again until everything is mixed up.
much love,
hedgie
Sunday, September 30, 2018
Sunday, September 23, 2018
i can read the monkey's mind
September 17: Mr. Wood’s came had a black eye from trying to calm down a child who was throwing around everything in the class he could pick up. That child has a two-day suspension, which is the first suspension I have ever heard of taking place at this school. Not even the kid who repeatedly pulled the fire alarm got suspended. He wrote one anonymous apology letter.
September 18: “This is our blubber glove so we can experience what it feels like for whales to be in cold water.”
“What’s in it?”
“Crisco. It’s used for baking as a butter substitute.”
“Can I eat it?”
“Please don’t.”
“But I love butter.”
“You would eat just butter?”
“I can eat a whole stick. I like to put it on chocolate.”
September 19: By the time my kids came down for supper, there weren’t enough hot dogs for them to have seconds. They took it very, very personally.
September 20: I taught my Endangered Species class about the Black Crested Macaques that figured out how to take selfies. After they got over the whole bright pink butt thing, they got surprisingly into the court case that followed. “How can PETA know what the monkey is thinking? Are they just like ‘I can read the monkey’s mind and they want to sue you and you and you?’”
September 21: Addie is not able to sense earthquakes before they happen, but apparently she can predict when George is about to have a bout of diarrhea. At three in the morning, she started pacing the room and whining until Nick took them out. Which is double strange because George shows no symptoms of anything bad about to happen until it is already too late.
September 22: Nick decided that today we would have a tea parade. He brewed a mug for all five teas that he brought home from Singapore. He even chose themed mugs so that we could tell which was which. The Unicorn green tea was in a green mug. The detox tea was in my teacher mug because being a teacher means I need to detox. The Singapore Breakfast was in a red mug because it matched the red tin. The white tea was in a white box. And the Royal Tea was in an Elvis mug because that is the closest thing we had to royalty.
September 23: I have 22 fourth graders stuffed into a room that is set up for 15 second graders. They can’t all sit in their chairs without moving the table farther away from each other and they can’t all fit on the rainbow rug at the same time because the cabinets are positioned right at the edges and there is no space for overflow.
much love,
hedgie
September 18: “This is our blubber glove so we can experience what it feels like for whales to be in cold water.”
“What’s in it?”
“Crisco. It’s used for baking as a butter substitute.”
“Can I eat it?”
“Please don’t.”
“But I love butter.”
“You would eat just butter?”
“I can eat a whole stick. I like to put it on chocolate.”
September 19: By the time my kids came down for supper, there weren’t enough hot dogs for them to have seconds. They took it very, very personally.
September 20: I taught my Endangered Species class about the Black Crested Macaques that figured out how to take selfies. After they got over the whole bright pink butt thing, they got surprisingly into the court case that followed. “How can PETA know what the monkey is thinking? Are they just like ‘I can read the monkey’s mind and they want to sue you and you and you?’”
September 21: Addie is not able to sense earthquakes before they happen, but apparently she can predict when George is about to have a bout of diarrhea. At three in the morning, she started pacing the room and whining until Nick took them out. Which is double strange because George shows no symptoms of anything bad about to happen until it is already too late.
September 22: Nick decided that today we would have a tea parade. He brewed a mug for all five teas that he brought home from Singapore. He even chose themed mugs so that we could tell which was which. The Unicorn green tea was in a green mug. The detox tea was in my teacher mug because being a teacher means I need to detox. The Singapore Breakfast was in a red mug because it matched the red tin. The white tea was in a white box. And the Royal Tea was in an Elvis mug because that is the closest thing we had to royalty.
September 23: I have 22 fourth graders stuffed into a room that is set up for 15 second graders. They can’t all sit in their chairs without moving the table farther away from each other and they can’t all fit on the rainbow rug at the same time because the cabinets are positioned right at the edges and there is no space for overflow.
much love,
hedgie
Sunday, September 16, 2018
snorting cocaine off a clown’s dick
September 9: We walked to Dolores Park and Katie pointed out a grown man wearing a rainbow unicorn onesie. Katie couldn’t stop staring at him because she wasn’t used to people dressing this way. All I could think of was how hot it must be wearing that on a sunny day like this.
September 10: I planned my lessons for the week, including community building games like ‘Never Have I Ever’ and ‘Vroom, Vroom, Screech’. Then I realized that I was teaching children the games I learned from drinking heavily in college while playing King’s Cup.
September 11: After each round, the kid who was eliminated from animal musical chairs would name their favorite animal. The kids still in the game would walk around the circle of chairs in the manner of the named animal. They had a difficult time trying to figure out how to walk like a chameleon and just squinted suspiciously at each other.
September 12: Jen said she was coming in late today because she needed to drop her kids off at the airport. She sent out a group text, saying she was at Boba Guys and asking if anyone wanted anything. Melissa looked up from her desk. “Tell her I want her to come in to work.”
September 13: Christy once took a candle-making class. She was able to choose the scent she wanted to work with. Among the normal choices of scents like lavender and vanilla was ‘freshly washed man’.
September 14: Everyone’s little brothers became very different adults than I expected them to be. Lydia’s brother David now burns holes into people’s chests and apply frog flesh to the holes, which causes them to vomit while he plays the flute. Emily’s brother Jake had a lot of beers and we ended having a conversation about snorting cocaine off a clown’s dick.
September 15: Though Lydia’s wedding day was full of touching moments and tender scenes, the memory that will always stick out in my mind was her excited naked dance while screaming “I’m getting married”at the top of the stairs before she took her morning shower.
September 16: Lydia’s wedding photographer cancelled on them three hours before the wedding by email. Nick ended taking pictures of everything and took his duty so seriously that everyone thought he was the actual hired photographer and were confused as to why he was helping clean up the venue the next morning.
much love,
hedgie
September 10: I planned my lessons for the week, including community building games like ‘Never Have I Ever’ and ‘Vroom, Vroom, Screech’. Then I realized that I was teaching children the games I learned from drinking heavily in college while playing King’s Cup.
September 11: After each round, the kid who was eliminated from animal musical chairs would name their favorite animal. The kids still in the game would walk around the circle of chairs in the manner of the named animal. They had a difficult time trying to figure out how to walk like a chameleon and just squinted suspiciously at each other.
September 12: Jen said she was coming in late today because she needed to drop her kids off at the airport. She sent out a group text, saying she was at Boba Guys and asking if anyone wanted anything. Melissa looked up from her desk. “Tell her I want her to come in to work.”
September 13: Christy once took a candle-making class. She was able to choose the scent she wanted to work with. Among the normal choices of scents like lavender and vanilla was ‘freshly washed man’.
September 14: Everyone’s little brothers became very different adults than I expected them to be. Lydia’s brother David now burns holes into people’s chests and apply frog flesh to the holes, which causes them to vomit while he plays the flute. Emily’s brother Jake had a lot of beers and we ended having a conversation about snorting cocaine off a clown’s dick.
September 15: Though Lydia’s wedding day was full of touching moments and tender scenes, the memory that will always stick out in my mind was her excited naked dance while screaming “I’m getting married”at the top of the stairs before she took her morning shower.
September 16: Lydia’s wedding photographer cancelled on them three hours before the wedding by email. Nick ended taking pictures of everything and took his duty so seriously that everyone thought he was the actual hired photographer and were confused as to why he was helping clean up the venue the next morning.
much love,
hedgie
Saturday, September 8, 2018
gallantly broke into our apartment through the bathroom window
September 1: We come across so much poop in the city that Nick claims he can guess which poop is human or dog with a 90% accuracy rate. This drives me crazy because how could he possibly know? It’s not like he’s getting it tested afterwards to see if he was right. He has no scientific data to back his claims.
September 2: She shut her eyes against the bus’ headlights. She could still see the light pierce red through her eyelids as it went past. When she opened her eyes, she could see just one man in a jean jacket was onboard. She wondered where he could be going at this hour. The breaks on the bus were old and squeaked as the bus wheezed to a stop at the intersection.
September 3: With the wonderful combination of the flu, period cramps, George’s diarrhea, and a Hello Fresh delivery at five in the morning, I have not been able to get more than three consecutive hours of sleep.
September 4: Due to illness and the beginning of the soccer season, I had nine kids today. And I was still the last one there because of late pick ups.
September 5: Serenity took a break with us today and complained about the homework load given to second graders. She couldn’t believe that she was supposed to read seven days a week. She shook her head as she tried to fill our new steam essential oil diffuser and watched it overfill and run onto the table. “Reading on Sunday is disrespecting the lord.”
September 6: The front door lock broke. It will turn 90% of the way and maddeningly refuse to continue past that. Ron then gallantly broke into our apartment through the bathroom window by rappelling down from the roof on a rope he tied to a pipe he found up there and let us in.
September 7: My hedgehog squishy lasted two weeks. Today, someone ripped its face off, threw it into my book bin, and then colored in the missing section with a red marker.
September 8: She had an automatic distrust of people who told her how she should see them. Whenever someone told her how funny they were without pairing it with anything actually funny, she visibly recoiled from them like someone behind her suddenly dropped an ice cube down the back of her shirt.
much love,
hedgie
September 2: She shut her eyes against the bus’ headlights. She could still see the light pierce red through her eyelids as it went past. When she opened her eyes, she could see just one man in a jean jacket was onboard. She wondered where he could be going at this hour. The breaks on the bus were old and squeaked as the bus wheezed to a stop at the intersection.
September 3: With the wonderful combination of the flu, period cramps, George’s diarrhea, and a Hello Fresh delivery at five in the morning, I have not been able to get more than three consecutive hours of sleep.
September 4: Due to illness and the beginning of the soccer season, I had nine kids today. And I was still the last one there because of late pick ups.
September 5: Serenity took a break with us today and complained about the homework load given to second graders. She couldn’t believe that she was supposed to read seven days a week. She shook her head as she tried to fill our new steam essential oil diffuser and watched it overfill and run onto the table. “Reading on Sunday is disrespecting the lord.”
September 6: The front door lock broke. It will turn 90% of the way and maddeningly refuse to continue past that. Ron then gallantly broke into our apartment through the bathroom window by rappelling down from the roof on a rope he tied to a pipe he found up there and let us in.
September 7: My hedgehog squishy lasted two weeks. Today, someone ripped its face off, threw it into my book bin, and then colored in the missing section with a red marker.
September 8: She had an automatic distrust of people who told her how she should see them. Whenever someone told her how funny they were without pairing it with anything actually funny, she visibly recoiled from them like someone behind her suddenly dropped an ice cube down the back of her shirt.
much love,
hedgie
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)