Holiday de Escuela

I have got to remember that I've brought home the snails and millipedes for this next week that school is closed, and that they are still in my satchel along with homework papers.  The millipedes are famous for getting out, and must be secured so that a cat and arthropod 3 a.m. rumpus does not occur.  The pseudo-bugs do give a mild bite that surprises more than stings, but not enough for a cat to notice.

Today's Valentine activities were harrowing but pleasantly so; the kids brought in more candy than at Halloween and Christmas combined and were soggy by the end of the day.  I bought sheet pizzas for them, for how could I not when a small boy had written to me "Happy Valentine's Day.  I hope we have piss," meaning, of course, pizza.  We divvied up the bags of candy and I did not let them eat any of it, they would have been sick after the cheese and pepperoni, the cupcakes, the cookies, and then the snow peas the cafeteria sent up as a snack.  One wise guy, however, popped a cellophane wrapped, oversized gumball into his mouth.  I'm not eating it!  It has the wrapper on it!  Visions of Heimlich maneuvers danced in my head.

By that time, the kids were zombified and staggering from food overload; there were no arguments except that they all wanted to carry their bags home in hand, not in their backpacks in order to show off their loot.  Oh ho no, said the mean teacher.  Not one body is leaving this classroom if I see a bag out.  Do you not think that the older kids on the bus would steal them from you?  Well, they would and you know it.  Put them away.  Now.  Hisss.  

There is a Promethean board in the room that I have little clue how to master, but figured out how to pop in a dvd after I got back my connecting cables that other teachers had "borrowed".   My foot.  Borrowing means asking first, not sneaking away without any written indication as to whose filching was taking place.  

The kids and I had decided that enough school work had been accomplished, and so watched a SpongeBob Squarepants movie.  Patrick Starfish is a character usually wearing pants; an ongoing joke was showing him with no pants, causing the kids to scream appreciatively but wait, I thought.  Starfish don't wear pants to begin with, and neither does Donald Duck, but that doesn't cause any reaction whatsoever.  Context, people, it's all in the context.

Glad to get home, got shined up and went with a grown up friend for supper; most enjoyable as talking to an adult after a day of six year olds is refreshing and resets the synapses.  This adult has also offered to help knock a frame together for my canvas, another exciting adventure; I have no qualms about painting, it's getting the thing to it's destination that is problematic.  But first things first, and that is to stretch a seven foot canvas, perhaps six; the paper for a rough sketch is tabbed to a wall and ready for pencil and measurement.  And I have a week, a whole week with little other responsibilities.  I am almost delirious.

A lovely day in all, a day of exchanges and goggle-eyed children who are probably still awake at this close to midnight hour, catapulted forward by sugar.   Their little selves in jammies may levitate an inch above the bed tonight from all of the godawful Laffy Taffy they've ingested.

Here is where we part and say good night; go to our own cupboard of dreams for solace and thought, climb abed and fall.  Night of transparent shadows covers our meanderings, darkness rings the garden of dreams.  Good night, good night.  Sleep, innocent.