My circus + my monkeys

Adam said, "I hope it wasn't your shoes."

There's that, at least.  My shoes didn't go missing.

Yesterday was A WHOLE DAY.  

For starters, it was picture day.  Before school, the teachers had to get their pictures taken and we were all a little cranky about it.  We stood in line and grumped.

Matt said not to go to recess until we had had our students' pictures taken.

But then it all took waaaaaaay longer than it was supposed to.  Guess who gets upset when their recess is late?

Third graders.

Everyone was increasingly frayed around the edges and they kept asking me when will it be our turn for pictures?!?

I could say I don't know a million different ways and it wouldn't have made a difference. (I know this because I did.)  There were the students whose mom made them dress up and they were unhappy about it.  There were the students who forgot it was picture day and they'd just worn regular clothes and they were either unhappy or fine with it.  Either way, they wanted to talk about it.  Then there were the students who brought the money for a picture order and the ones who did not and they were all stressed about it because Teacher, what do I do with this?!?  and also, Teacher, I didn't bring money! and Teacher, I think my mom forgot!

It's fine.  I said.  It's fine.

Finally, we got the call to go for pictures.  I had a student who refused to put his arms inside his sleeves and the picture taker refused to be OK with it.

I finally talked him out of the turtle look.  Then he refused to smile.  Re-fused.  The photographer was persistent.  Finally I said, "I think that is as good as it is going to get." She told me to move because I was blocking the flash.  (She did let the poor kid move on though.)

By lunchtime, I felt like I needed a nap, but we were just getting started.

Let me just give you the run down of the cast of characters.

The recess aide:  she is a mom and as such 1) refused to give up in the face of something missing and 2) knows shoes are important

The one who lost his shoes:  completely ambivalent.  He's the most chilled out islander around and shoes vs. no shoes?  No big deal.  He could have cared less.

The girls in my class:  little mother hens.  They were completely bent out of shape that the shoes were missing and they had all sorts of wild theories.

The boy who actually knew something:  Um, Teacher?  I know who took the shoes.  I appreciated his knowledge + wondered why he didn't come forward with the information about 15 minutes earlier.

The liar next door:  I didn't take the shoes (he had).

His accomplice:  I don't know anything about it (he did).

So Miriam's boys finally confessed and produced the shoes and I was left putting together the pieces.  Meanwhile, one of my students from last year was supposed to be at recess herself, but instead pressed her face up to the window of my classroom for reasons beyond my understanding. And let me tell you, my already riled up class was not having it.

I kept saying ignore her and she will go away and she kept not going away.

Later in the day, when things finally started to feel rebalanced, one of my struggling behavior champions (he's so good at it) flipped out so much we had to evacuate and lock down the classroom.

Just another day in paradise.