It's this day, not me, that's bound to go away

 Yesterday was an astonishingly hard day at school.

I cried after school and Miriam hugged me.

I pulled it together and got to work, then I cried the entire drive home two and a half hours later and Adam hugged me.

I'll be OK.

It was just astonishingly hard.  It is really hard to teach school when you don't feel all that great.  It is even harder when you are sort of discombobulated from being gone so much.  It is harder still when your students are extra sassy or trying to get away with things because you've been gone so much.

I know that I could rein them in given a day or two,  but I'm gone today to district training and then I'm gone Monday to CA.  (I'm excited about that one, but it is still hard.)

I had three students who were disrespectful in their reading group with one of the young fresh faced aides.  A boy got his Tamagotchi taken away (I had already told him I would take it away if I saw it out again).

Side note:  are Tamagotchis still a thing?!?  Is this the early 2000s?

He was very concerned about it being taken away and kept asking me about it.  I reiterated that I had told him it would get taken away if he had it out.

He kept asking if I would find out about it.  He wondered if he could go to the office to check if it were there.

I told him his Tamagotchi was not my problem.  At all.

I found a love letter from one student to another.  I approached the sender very gently and called her over privately and said, "I found this."

She very indignantly told me that it was for (the admired boy).  As in, stay in your lane, you weren't the intended audience.

I said, "This isn't OK in third grade."  (It was requesting kissing....)

She looked at me like I owed her money.

I said, "If I find a note like this again, I'll tell your parents."

She said, "Fine!" and went and put her head down on her desk in embarrassment.

In reading we read "Amazing Facts About the Sun." Some of the "amazing facts" were actually advice:  don't spend too much time unprotected in the sun--sun damage can cause skin cancer.  

Then everyone wanted to know if my cancer was caused by the sun.

Try explaining lymph nodes to third graders.....

A girl went to her desk and got a little tube of lotion and smeared it all over her face before I could stop her.  She said, "I don't want skin cancer!"

Before lunch, I said we weren't going to lunch until everyone had finished the assignment.  One girl had yet to start.  She said, "You can't do that.  It's against the law."

I said, "Nevertheless, we aren't going until you are finished."

Another girl timidly asked, "We all aren't going to lunch?"

I said, "No. Not until everyone is finished."

Then everyone collectively was a bit more invested.

The whole day was just exhausting.  

I made it through the day, through the chaos.  After the bell had rung and my class had left, a fifth grade boy knocked on the outside door.

He hugged me (which is what he did daily when he was in third grade).  He looked at me closely.  He said, "My mom said you might be sick."

I said, "Yes.  I have been getting treatments, but I am doing OK."

He said, "Is it an...illness?"

I said, "I have a type of cancer, but I'm OK.  I'm getting better."

He looked at me like he wanted to say more, but didn't know what to say.  I said, "Everything is OK."

He said, "OK."  He gave me another hug.

That's when I closed the door and cried.  (Usually when someone is kind to me, that is when the dam bursts.)

They can be so very maddening and they are.  They can take advantage of subs and young fresh faced aides.  They can do all the things I tell them not to do over and over and over.

But really, they are just the sweetest kids.  I love my job. This is hard, but as Tabor would say, "I hired on to be tough."

I will have my cry, dry my tears and try try again.