The thought of blindness opened my eyes to the bigger picture

We have the cutest kindergartner at school. No doubt all the teachers love her to death. She has the most amazing personality for a kindergartner. There is something really special about this kid... and we've all seen it since the very first day we've met her.
Well, last week we found out that she has a degenerative eye disease and is progressively going blind. First word of this news broke all of our hearts. The thought of her having to go through that and spend a majority of her life unable to see and experience all the discomfort and negative emotions that come with that......
But after thinking about it for a little while this isn't such a grim prognosis after all. For One, this kid is resilient. This is the type of kid who will find hope when the rest of the world sees none. This is the type of kid that will hold up and carry the torch of Joy when the rest of the world gives in to discouragement and despair. Yes, she's only a kindergartner... but like I said, there is something very special about her...
... and Secondly, I've heard of and seen God heal much more complicated things than this. I believe God can heal her eyes. What an opportunity we have as her teachers to pray for that and call God's healing into her life.

Fudge

So, a kid a work today used the F word. When I talked to him about it, his explanation was:
STudent: well, I said "you little fudger."
Me: WEll, it did not sound like that... it sounded like the F word... I know you said the F word.
Student: Well, I said "you little fudger." orrrrrrrrrrrrr at least thats that I MEANT to say. I might have accidently put a K in then and it came out as the F word.

Wisdom of Children

So, today at work this little 5 year old tripped and had a pretty good fall. Bruised up his face really good with a decent gash to the left of his eye. His teacher felt absolutely horrible about it. She called his mom and his mom came to check on him to make sure he was ok and didn't need to go to the ER to get stitches. After getting the gash cleaned up and the bleeding stopped, this kid was doing pretty good. His teacher was telling his mom how it just made her feel sick to her stomach, she felt horrible. (just looking at his face made me feel queezy... it just looked painful!). Well, as his teacher was talking about how horrible she felt, this little boy said, "its ok Mrs. __________. its ok cause the medicine will make it feel better AND Jesus will heal my face. Right mom, Jesus will heal my face?"
This sweet little kid consoling his teacher made me a little teary eyed..... what a doll!

thought of the day...

thought from work today: somedays it feels like some children truly are possessed by the devil.

time out

So, time out is an effective way of disciplining children at work when they misbehave or don't listen. Because time out means they are missing out on something fun. Well, I've had many responses from the lovely children when I put them in time out. "I hate you." "your not my friend." "I'm so mad right now." But here are my three favorite time out responses from the past week.

* I'm so mad at you right now. I'm so mad. You don't know that I have a magic fist. my fist can punch the wall from here and I want to punch you in the face with my magic fist."

*I wish I could flip you off right now.

...and this one is my favorite....

* You just wait till my lawyers hear about this... they will be in contact with you.

imaginations

Here is what I love about working with 4 year olds... keeping them entertained is so easy. Here is a conversation at recess today.

Ms. Sara: Hey, how are today Francine (obviously I changed the name for public blogging purposes)

Francine: Good. Here hold this rock. Pretend this rock is a spider and its sitting in your hand. And pretend you like this spider and its your friend. your pet. And pretend you named it Ralph. And pretend this other rock is a spider too. And its your pet. And pretend you named it Frank. And pretend I came to borrow your pet spider. And pretend this handful of rocks is a handful of worms. But pretend you like worms. And pretend you are going to give them to me. And pretend I really like my gift. And pretend I let the spiders and the worms play together. And then pretend I returned your spiders after the day was over. And pretend they had so much fun playing with the worms. And pretend you tuck your spiders into bed. And pretend you read them a story. And pretend I come over cause I left 1 of my worms at your house. And pretend you invite me in for a cup of tea. And pretend then while we are drinking our tea, my worms go wake up your spiders. And pretend you get mad and yell at your spiders to go to bed. And pretend I make my worms go wait over here in the car...............

and on and on and on this little story/acting out this story of the spiders and worms go....... till recess is over.

Man that was hard entertaining this child. What a rough day.....

Sandwich Surprise

I went grocery shopping late Wednesday night to buy a loaf of bread because I was CRAVING a peanut butter sandwich for days!!! So, Thursday morning I packed a lunch for work with my much prized peanut butter sandwich. At lunch, as I was handing out trays of beef burritos (eww) to the preschoolers all I could think about was my peanut butter sandwich waiting for me. Finally I sat down to eat my peanut butter sandwich (with extra extra peanut butter).... and about halfway in to eating my sandwich I bite into something green and hard, but soft at the same time... What is this in my peanut butter sandwich????? a green garbage bag tie. Now how did that get there? was it in the bread? The tie I took off the bread bag was one of the square plastic ones... so it wasn't what I had just taken off the bread bag.....was it in the peanut butter??? I am just baffled at how this got into my sandwich. Did it spoil my peanut butter sandwich appetite? oh no. I just quietly removed it... and finished consuming my peanut butter greatness.