Small Town Wren

I eat lunch with two little boys at work. They’re both delightful.

While walking in the hallway today, I passed one of them. He waved real big and said “Hi, Lunch!”

What a booger.

I lost my job today. Not because of anything I did, but because the economy sucks and there’s a big union working to push me under the bus.

I’m done playing this game.

Between my server going down and a ridiculous amount of work that had to get done yesterday, I didn’t get a chance to post. Much apologies for the interrupted service.

Let’s see, what have I missed? Well, there was the earthquake that happened yesterday morning. You know, the 3.8 magnitude earthquake with the epicenter about 12 miles from my domicile that woke pretty much everyone up at exactly 4:00am. I had the added pleasure of having a puppy launch herself onto my body in a fit of panic.

Another thing that happened yesterday was a touch embarrassing. I was taken out by a first grader. And I don’t mean on a date. I was pretty much bowled over by an autistic seven-year-old. Sweet kid and, to some extent, my fault. If I’d been watching my buddy a little closer I could have stopped him from waving and thus prompting a bit of a freak out on the other child’s account. Gosh darn my kid being so friendly! Luckily, it turned out okay and I managed to get my buddy out of the way so I was the one who got run into and not him.

As for today: today was a special day. Today was 100 Day! Our kids had their 100th day of school today (thought it’s only my 97th; shhh). So I got to wear my educational tshirt on a non-friday and was given an awesome sticker. And boy did we count to 100 a ridiculous amount of times. Out entire day was filled with math activities involving counting to 100 and kids brought in collections of 100 things and it was awesome and silly.

My buddy and his mother presented these to me today. They baked them together this morning. It was such a sweet gesture and he held them out to me with such pride. I don’t know how I’m supposed to go without seeing his smiling face for a whole nine days. Let’s not even think about Christmas.

Lately I’ve felt like a Mom-Away-from-Mom to my special buddy. He’s started vying for my attention in the ways I’ve seen him do with his mom. I’m not his mom, and that is not my role in any way, shape, or form. It’s hard because I do care about him and want him to succeed. And it is hard because I don’t have my own children, so I am having to learn in many ways how to be a parent…where to draw the line with helping, with enabling, with coddling. And it’s a hard thing because the impulse is always to comfort.

But comforting isn’t helping. Letting him get away with less than he can do isn’t helping. That’s not why I’m there. I’m there to help him grow, help him succeed.

And that means pushing him away. It means separating myself, because he and I are not a unit. In some ways we are, but this is his time to be in school and my time to work.

I walked away from him today. I’ve had to do it more often lately, and it’s never easy. It’s never easy to ignore a child who wants your attention desperately. Sometimes, however, it’s good for him.

He didn’t want to participate in P.E. today because getting attention from me is more fun. I had to walk away. It’s weird to walk away from the child you’re supposed to be working with: not everyone understands that, in the long run, it’s what is best.

I left him lying on the floor of the gym. And he pouted real hard when I walked away and sat down far, far away. He rolled around and stamped his feet. But after a few minutes, he began watching the class. And then he stood up. And then he walked around them and looked at them some more. And just before class ended, he walked over and joined.

The rest of the kids shouted his name and cheered. They begged the teacher to pick him to run under the parachute. They were so excited he was joining. He was, too.

They don’t know it’s happening, but it is.  They certainly don’t see me watching it happen with a critical eye either.  Nor do they see me changing, but I cannot blame them for that one: the changing that is happening is an internal one.  I cannot blame them for any of them.

My subjects are only five and six years old, and they have no idea that the interactions they have today will, in many ways, affect who they will become for the rest of their lives.  My inner anthropologist has reared its head and I can’t help but notice the subtle interactions of social hierarchy that my kindergartners display.  They are in an awkward position: they know nothing about what social power means, but somewhere deep in their subconscious, they know they want it.

Already conspicuous consumption is a big part of their lives.  It’s never more apparent than on Halloween.  It makes me cringe to see them so young already deciding what’s cool and what’s not and forming opinions of their peers based on this.  Especially when none of them really understand what it means to be Michael Jackson when they decide it’s not the hip thing.  It hurts me greatest when I realize I’m the most prized possession of all.

I am not a teacher and our kids know that.  Since it’s hard to explain to students so young what exactly I am and why, they just know me as my buddy’s special adult friend.  They know he is different, but they do not really understand why, nor why it demands so much attention from an adult.  They’re still young enough that they don’t see the ability gap.  They know he is different because we say he is, and because he doesn’t talk often and has so much modified furniture to help his tiny frame fit.  Bless them, they do not hold it against him.

They volley for my attention.  They ask me questions about lots of things, more so than our teacher.  I think they feel more comfortable asking me the random questions since I sit at tables with them, and am with them during carpet time.  I occupy this strange in-between place.  Not teacher, not student, but someone who acts as both depending on the situation.  And that is where my own status endowment comes in: I’m the coolest of the students because I’m not a student.

I don’t know how to deal with this.  My Classroom Dynamics class is also on the topic of social status and the influences it has on the classroom.  I made a status map of our classroom.  It broke my heart how easily I placed some at the top and some at the bottom.  They don’t know how in a few years time, the opinions they have formed of each other will determine everything about their school life.  They don’t know just how important being part of a clique will be.

I can’t stop it.  I can only help it by, somewhat uncomfortably, giving what power I can to the students on the bottom of my list.

It’s already proven itself to be a long week.  I picked up another grad class this week as F01 turned into F02. I love the class, but my work load is about as tough as I can handle, just about. It’s incredibly fortunate that I love the class I picked up: Classroom Dynamics.  Why can’t we have a full semester of that and only half of one on Assessment?

I already mentioned the H1N1 vaccine disaster. Now they’ve canceled their other clinics due to running out. As I said: we’re all doomed.

I’m exhausted and stressed out about things. It hasn’t helped that my medications make it hard for me to sleep if I don’t do that weird skip-every-fourth-day regimen. Guess who forgot to skip the fourth day during such a busy week? Oh yeah, I totally loved waking up every hour or so last night and then being up for 20-30 minutes. It also hasn’t helped that the last twenty minutes of down-time I had at work were scheduled up with K-Leap interventions.

As I say all the time: I love my job, and I love my buddy, but having a few minutes to just hang out in Kindergarten when he’s with a specialist was a welcome pause. Today was kind of a grumpy day anyway. He was tired, and we had a run-in with projectile, goopy snot. And we painted our faces green.  God bless water-soluble paint. I don’t know how I would have explained that one.  At least he didn’t rub hand sanitizer in his eyes today.

I just wish I didn’t have to wake up early tomorrow for a checkup with my brain doctor. Sleep would be so welcome tonight, and being able to sleep in past 8:30 would be incredible. C’est la vie.

I love my job.  Don’t ever get me wrong about that.  I love scampering off to Kindergarten every day and greeting my class’s students.  I love when my special buddy comes racing towards me with a huge grin on his face.  I love everything about being a SpEd paraprofessional.

The thing I don’t like is all the pee.  Especially when that pee winds up on me.

Excitement is great, especially when my buddy is excited.  He can be stubborn sometimes, and tired other times, and sometimes things are just all wrong for no reason at all.  So when he’s psyched about things, I’m psyched.  And we celebrate our triumphs with everyone: showing off stickers earned, sharing our drawings from art, giving and receiving hugs several hundred-thousand times a day.

My buddy’s been having trouble with storytime lately, which is really unusual. Especially in art class.  I don’t mind being a mountain for him, but for him to climb me during storytime is inappropriate, and I know he knows it is.  And I feel terrible struggling with him to face forward, to look at the pictures.  It’s so frustrating because he loves art.  Once we get started with projects, he happily trots along with paint, pastels, pencils, whatever.  He thinks it’s wonderful (and I think it’s wonderful that he thinks it’s wonderful).

We drew robots today.  He was so proud of his, and so was I.  He drew it mostly himself with just some hand stabilizing support.  We were both so proud, and we went and showed everyone we could find his wonderful robot.  But it just so happens that art runs right up to our potty time.

I have to admit, I laughed the entire time.  Even when some of his tinkle squirted onto my foot, I giggled.  Because he was so giddy and happy about his robot, he could not stand still long enough to pee only in the toilet.  No, we had to dance while peeing.  And as most grown ups know, one should not dance while one pees.  But we danced today, and giggled.  And I was so proud because when he was done, he grabbed some toilet paper and helped me clean up.  Not very many other six-year-olds would have helped me without any prompting.  But my buddy did. And we laughed and danced the whole time.

I lied. There is no down side.