Updates

Yick. I've spent the whole week coughing my lungs out, sneezing gobs of gunk, and running low grade fevers. Did I take a day or two off to recover? Hell no! I only get 8 sick days and 2 personal days per school year and I do not use them for myself!! I have Will and Robby to think about here and the many many illnesses they will contract over the course of a school year. What about those poor innocent kids in my class that I am probaby passing the illness to? Well, I figure I probably got it from one of them in the first place, so turn about is fair play!

Rather than introduce a new friend this week, I want to update on the ones previously introduced.

Princess - the whole lunch drama has me ready to pull out my hair! Queen Mum told me I was to check Princess' lunchbox each day - if she had a drink, then it was a "full lunch" from home. If there was no drink, then it was a "supplement" and she needed to take a tray as well. This worked for about 3 days, until Princess (mad that Mum was making her take a tray on a day she didn't want to) sneaked her own drink into the lunchbox and threw me completely off. Queen Mum called me that afternoon, raging that Princess had not taken a tray, and then completely mortified when we figured out what Princess had done. I finally made up 2 cards - one that says "Princess has a lunch from home today" with a picture of lunchbox on it and one that says "Princess needs a tray today" on it. Queen Mum puts the correct card in Princess' folder each morning, I check for it as soon as Princess gets to class, and there are no more questions or tears about what is happening at lunch that day. Still a PITA, but less so that having to inspect her lunchbox for a drink each day. The whole "supplement" has become an issue, as now other children want to bring snacks to take to lunch as well and it's officially against school policy. So I've been put in the very uncomfortable position of telling them "Well, Princess can, but you can't. Why? Um..... Because her Mum made a deal with Mrs. Pop. Sorry."

Van Gogh - I am almost out of patience with this little man. The incessant crying, shrieking, whining, yelling is enough to drive you batty. He only has 1 friend in class and is convinced he has sole proprietary rights to this child. If Friend tries to play with anyone else Van Gogh throws a monster tantrum and wails "You are never my friend again!!!!" Of course three minutes later he's by the boy's side, begging to play with him. The friend is remarkably tolerant of this, but I'm not sure how long that tolerance will last. Van Gogh threw a screaming fit at the end of recess Friday because "he didn't get long enough to play" - and no, he doesn't care that he got the same amount of time as everyone else - and I snapped at him "Are you hurt? No? Then KNOCK IT OFF!" To my utter surprise he turned off the tears and screaming immediately, like a light switch being flipped. Not a moment I'm proud of as a teacher, but apparently what works for him.

Toddler Girl - they finally completed her initial speech and language evaluation on Monday and she has the verbal skills of a 2.5 yr old. I did her baseline evaluation on Thursday and she can count to 3, knows 4 out of 10 colors, does not recognize any letters or numbers, and cannot find her name written on a page with 2 other words that start with the same letter. This is the same baseline evaluation I do with all the K kids in September, not something special I did just for her. The good news is, she is finally able to sit somewhat quietly on the carpet with us during whole group activities, and is doing markedly less hitting than 2 weeks ago. On Friday I had the guidance counselor take her out of the room for half an hour to play some games while we had a class meeting. Without using her name - although the children knew who I was talking about - I led a discussion about how one of our friends was having a hard time learning how to act at school, in part because she had never been to preschool, daycare, or Head Start, and how we all needed to help her learn to follow the rules. We talked about how sad it makes me to see people say and do mean things to her and how much she wants to play with them, she just doesn't know how to do it. We also talked about how it isn't really helpful to me for them to tell on her every time she lays down on the carpet, sits up on her rest mat, or walks beside the line instead of in the line. I can see and hear her just as well as they can and don't really need 15 little reporters telling me every time.I hopefully sparked some mother-hen feelings in a few of my little girls - for the first time I saw them trying to include her in their games at recess. Toddler Girl was THRILLED when they invited her to swing with them. I'll do the best I can to keep stirring up support for her, although she undermines me when she does things like lean over and snap her teeth at the girl swinging next to her!

Next weekend I'll introduce my buddy Double Trouble, arch enemy of Toddler Girl!