Gin to Juiceboxes

The end of every Summer vacation brings two exciting events for me:
One, I finally catch up on unread facebook posts and realized that EVERYONE in the world (except me) is having a baby right now.
Two, I’m getting nervous and excited for a new year of my own freshly ready-for-school little ones and daily scanning the school website to see my growing list of kiddos. What do these two events have in common? Names.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I am not the typical early elementary school teacher. I look down the hall in my own school and there are all varieties of “teacher types.” We have all the basics represented: the teacher who plays guitar as her students enter in the morning; the vegan-hippie-free spirit who wears hemp shoes and loves everyone, but especially kids; the new teacher who is always flitting from copier to lesson plans and back and forth – you can sometimes recognize the new teacher as the one still wearing heels; the veteran teacher who seems to breeze in 15 minutes before the kids but still seems relaxed; the cranky teacher who has no business being with children in general; and of course, the one whose room is so decorated with gingham and teddy bears that it looks like the build-a-bear workshop threw up in there.

You know those stupid people who believe teaching kindergarten is super easy (such as my former summertime self)? Well, it’s not super easy. There is more to do than I ever thought possible, I mean, my students are 5 so…..there should be fingerpainting and playdough right? A lot of fun stuff. Actually, after my first week of teaching Kindergarten this year I came home and told my husband (oh yeah, have I mentioned him yet?) Mr. G. as I dejectedly put down all my lesson planning guides in the middle of the living room to get started on my next week of plans, “Honey? Ummm, I don’t think I like Kindergarten.” Then proceeded to cry like a, well, 5-year-old.

So many parts of teaching are a surprise. Surprise, swine flu has hit your school and you have 10 students show up to class! Surprise, Strawberry Pop moved to another state (Yeah!) and you don’t have to ever see her again! Surprise, you’re grades are due not by next week, but by tomorrow! I guess all the surprises are what I love and hate about teaching. On the one hand, no day is the same so things don’t get boring, on the other hand, there is no way to plan for every possible disaster or waste of time that could come up. One thing thing I’m still working on here in November is how to deal with all the bathroom issues. Man, 5-year-olds really can’t control their bladders can they? So, every time a kid asks me to go to the bathroom I have to decide, do I feel lucky? Am I willing to have a mess on my hands? (bad choice of words, let me rephrase) Am I willing to have pee on my classroom carpet if this kid actually can’t hold it for 5 minutes until we have a break in our lesson?

Have you ever gotten cut off by another car in traffic and out of frustration you let fly some insane comment that you never would have said to the person’s face? And then after you said it you were wondering, ‘where did that come from? That’s not me, I’m a nice person.’ Sure you have. Ever done it in front of 28 5-year-olds? I have.

In preparation for starting this new school year, I decided to put together a teacher’s survival kit for myself filled with little things to get me through the day. As a teacher, I am constantly in the middle of a work day and find myself wanting something for myself that I don’t have on hand. Suddenly, I’m an educated working class adult who is stranded on a desert island with 25 six-year-olds and no access to a nail file to get that pesky hangnail taken care of. And of course, once I have a hangnail, it’s really hard to think about anything else.