How old am I again?

By now you can probably guess who this story's about.

No background info necessary at this time. Here it is:

J's birthday is tomorrow. So during a meeting time this morning he says, "Hey guys, my birthday's tomorrow!"

Of course, as is typical, the kids ask, "How old will you be?"

Here I interject, "Fifty, right, J?"

J: "No, no, I'll be sixteen!"


I'm thinking he is just kidding--until I turn around...he's totally serious.

Me: "J, honey, you're not going to be sixteen."

J: "Oh yeah, that's right, I'll be six!"

Me: "No...you'll be seven."


Okay...time for a practical life lesson...How To Know How Old You Are.

Lookin' for friends.

Someday I'll post a story about one of my kids other than my darling J.

But hey, he's just giving me new material for this blog every day; so I'll write it.


One of the many paraprofessionals that work in my room also does recess duty. She was working with J today at the end of the day and he was pretty much being himself: silly and a little out there...and she said to me, "Oh, that reminds me...I have to tell you what J did at recess the other day."

Uh oh...

She continued: "So he followed his little buddy up to me and the buddy said, 'Mrs. Kuhn, you know I'm J's only friend? So we're out here lookin' for more friends for him.'"

And off they trotted--"lookin' for friends."

Only in first grade.

Ballerina

Ah, my sweet little J.

Always doing something, isn't he? This kid is just fabulous. Seriously. Our class would be boring without him.

Yesterday we were walking in the hall. I always make sure I know EXACTLY where J is because sometimes, he's not always aware of his surroundings and does things like follows another class to THEIR classroom instead.

Oh yeah, that has happened.

So, I have one eye on J, one on the other 20 kiddos.

All of a sudden, J wasn't in line...he'd fallen on the ground.

FALLEN ON THE GROUND. WHILE WALKING.

JUST walking. Nothing else.

Not totally surprising since he often manages to fall out of his chair...this is pretty much a weekly occurrence (how do you fall out of chair THAT much?).

Then...up popped his little head, beet red: "Um, I was TRYING to be a ballerina. I do this at home. Then I fell."


I was laughing so hard I couldn't get my kids to stop laughing at him...which, fortunately, he thought was funny that they thought HE was funny.


I just don't get it...how do you just randomly fall? Love it.

Snippets

Sometimes I catch snippets of conversations from my kids.

I'm not sure what I've missed...I can only speculate.

Today I caught some hilarious snippets. I have this feeling they're kind of all connected:


T: "B, you HAVE no alibi."

(Bear in mind, she's SIX. And "alibi" is NOT a Word Wall word!)

B: "Guys, I eat paper all the time. Look!" [munches on a paperwad]

T: "Hmmm. I might try that." [finds her own paperwad, starts chewing like a bunny on lettuce]

Nice.

And what did I do, you ask?

Laughed.

What Teachers Really Do

I grew up in a family of teachers. Aunts, uncles, cousins, parents--you name it, in our family they teach (and coach). So I never really thought much about seeing my teachers at the grocery store or what they did in the summer because, well, I KNEW...I lived with two teachers.

Once I ran into one of my first-graders at the grocery store. He promptly turned cherry-red and was temporarily unable to talk.

That experience prompted me to ask my kids the next day, "What do you think I do when I'm not at school?"

One of my kids said, "You go to the store to buy more papers to grade."

So...

On Halloween this year my kids said, "Mrs. Overman, I'm coming to your house tonight during trick-or-treating time! Then instead of candy you can give me more homework!"

For the record, none of my kids came to my house. Guess they didn't really want that homework after all!

Why You Shouldn't Let Your Child Name Your Younger Child.

Yesterday one of my girls said, "You know, when my sister was born, my mom said that my brother and me could pick out a name for her. So we decided we wanted to name her Cinderella."

I laughed...then said, "And did your mom name her that?"

K: "No, but I don't know why!"

Life by the Lakes

I live in an area loaded with lakes. I'm not from the "Lakes" area originally, so there are subtle cultural differences between where I grew up and here...although I remember coming up for weekends periodically...anyway...

Like I said, there are a few subtle cultural differences I've learned since living here, like:

1. The kids live around the lakes. It's not unusual to them that there are "Fireboats" and dry fire hydrants.

2. The use of watersports equipment and the fact that their teacher can drive watercraft isn't cool or foreign to them at all.

3. Words like wakeboard, kneeboard, waterskis, wake, etc. are a part of their normal vocabulary.


Today we made turkeys. I gave the kids a turkey body and a page of feathers. I explained the general idea of how to put these birds together and left them to their own designs.

You remember my little J? Totally out there...hilarious! We'd been coloring/cutting for awhile and he brought his page of feathers to me, saying:

"Um, Mrs. Overman? Here's my turkey."

Me: "Honey, you're not done yet."

J: "Okay, but what are these things for?" [Holds up feathers]

Me: "Those are your feathers for the turkey."

J: "Oh. I thought those were like the things you slide on the lake water with."

Me: "You're so funny!"

J: "Okay. I'm going to go finish my chicken."



Okay, kiddo, finish the turkey...with the wakeboard feathers.


Man, this kid cracks me up.

Resourceful

I WISH this were my story...it didn't happen to me, but it is TOTALLY worth posting.

One of my colleagues had taken her kids to the computer lab and apparently one of her girls had gotten into a math program that was waaaaay above her head because

she had taken off her shoes to count her toes AND fingers!


What a riot. And I thought my kids were the only funny ones...j/k. ;o)