After school

 Yesterday was warm and sunny.  I only wore a cardigan over my t-shirt for recess duty.  I decided to take down my winter decorations.

I have a wooden decoration I made years ago at a Relief Society thing.  It has three pumpkins stacked on each other, but if you turn it around, it is a snowman.  The bottom section is screwed into the base and a pain to disassemble.  The top two sections just stick together with pegs.

I decided I was finished with it and I plunked it in my garbage can that was in the hall awaiting the custodians.

There's a second grader who is trouble.  I think everyone in the school knows his name.  He is super cute and super rascally.  He stays after school for boys and girls club and he was walking by my door.

He said, "Wait!  What is this?!?"  He reached into my garbage and pulled off the top layer.  He said, "That came off easily."  He stuck his head in the door and said, "Hey, can I have this?"

I said, "Sure."

He quickly unzipped his backpack and started putting the fairly big pieces inside. When he got to the bottom layer, he said, "I can't get these apart."

Not looking up from my grading, I said, "Yeah, they are tricky."

He said, "But I can't do it."  

He brought it over to my desk and I gave it a cursory try, but said, "That is why I'm getting rid of it," and handed it back to him.

He looked around the room and asked, "What is this place anyway?"

I said, "Third grade.  You might be here next year."

He said, "I'm in second grade." (Like every teacher in the school doesn't know that, like I didn't know that because I said he'd be in third next.)

He said, "Well, I better go.  Thanks for this and...maybe I'll see you next year."

I said, "OK."

And I wouldn't mind him so much.  He's the type of boy Mark and his friend Gavin prepared me for.  If I do have him, I'll remind him that I gave him the pumpkins/snowman and he owes me some good will.

I was finishing up my grading and Miriam and Alissa came in my room to watch the professional learning hour over google meet together.  It is every bit as soul deadening as it sounds.  We sort of listened/participated with the camera off and I graded and then took down some more decorations.  They were both on their phones. 

Miriam accidentally bumped something and the volume came on her phone it was clear she was watching a video.

She looked sheepish and apologized.  I was up on a chair removing a heart that was hanging from the ceiling.  I said, "Yeah, you should be as engaged as I am."

Alissa said, "How dare you.  But what are you watching?"

Miriam said, "The high school state basketball championship."

Alissa and Miriam both played college basketball.  It shows in their competitiveness and wardrobes (Alissa has a Nike collection that would impress my brother Enoch) and the fact that Miriam plays basketball with kids when she has recess duty.

Alissa said, "You should have told me!  I want to watch basketball!"

The chatted about basketball and I kept taking down hearts.  I said, "Do you guys even have to stand on chairs for stuff like this?"

They are tall girls, but said they did.  Eventually we got tuned back into our professional learning hour.  

It was a multitasking kind of after school day.  Making friends with a future 3rd grader, climbing up and down a chair 50 times, professional learning hour.

And I got the papers graded!