Oh My!

Today was one of those days when you wish you could have just had a PASS for. Not that others don't have it worse, just that I didn't feel like I was up to the task. At Chapel Time the assistant director read The Giving Tree, which I know many find to be a lovely book, but I have to admit I don't like it. It hurts my heart, always has and always will. I was in no mood for it today. I had tears in my eyes the whole time and was trying not to let them escape.

There were certainly challenges aplenty at preschool today - for the GIRLS, the guys had it easy!

• Going to Chapel Time: 2 girls, 1 public bathroom, me (lucky me), 1 lost shoe, 1 child who didn't need to go, a child in the Chapel who did (wrong kid, right name came inside), and the other child backed her rear end into the handicapped toilet and pinched herself on the lid and screamed bloody murder. (Ms. Chrissie takes as deep a breath as is advisable in a public bathroom).
• Elevator ride after Chapel Time w/28 kids: (Ding!) SCREEEEAAAAM!!!!! A girl has put her arm down the hand rail attached to the elevator walls and when it stops she becomes wedged in. Really stuck about at the biceps. For a second I was thinking, broken arm, dislocated shoulder or elbow due to the screaming. And this is not a little girl. Nooooo. I can barely lift her. And she is panicking, and trying to pull away since she is too short to pull up any higher. The only way out is to go up. As the other teacher is trying to evacuate the kids another child almost gets shut in the doors. Oh that was fun! In that moment of extra adrenaline, I decided that even if the arm was broken that we just had to get her out first and then immobilize it and deal with it. So I did a herculean heave on her, carried her out and we sat down on the ground so Ms. Chrissie could recover. Ice packs arrived and we talked about the time my neice Kelly got her head stuck in stair railings and my son Gib got his butt stuck in a vaporizer. We laughed. (Thanks Gib!) Her arm was fine and not even a bruise a few hours later. By the way, her class ran to the teacher to report the event and their burst eardrums - no lie!!

Crazy enough, these moments are sooo typical for both these lovely little preschool ladies. I am just out of shape. 3 Boo-Boo reports in one day. And a stern talking to by Ms. Chrissie to an entire class because their teacher looked like she was ready to have a meltdown and they broke 2 new toys today, and the coup d'grace - I had to ask 3 times to get anyone to finish cleaning up this afternoon! Whoa! There went that great start to preschool for that class. They do still walk in a line admirably well though! They were promising me the moon when my 2 minute lecture was over.

On the plus side, though, I didn't get stung by any of the wasps that were in a nest in a classroom over Labor Day weekend before the "janitor" got to them, and I wasn't the teacher that gave a 3rd kid a boo-boo. That's something to be thankful for.