I do have some new (and old) funny things to write about. Again, I will open with this disclaimer: a lot of these situations may only be funny to me, because I have the ....pleasure?...curse?... of knowing and dealing with these boys. Without the appropriate voice inflections and facial expressions, some of these stories don't have the same effect as when they happened in real life. I have also changed names for privacy's sake.
I will try my best.
Distracted Urinator
This is one that happened last year, towards the beginning of the year, actually. The boys were all headed out to the playground for lunch and recess. I was about to close and lock up the room, when one of the boys came in and said,
"Ms. Hebert, Jacob peed all over the bathroom floor."
At this point, Jacob came in the room.
"Jacob, is this true?" I asked.
His reply:
"Yes... but it's only because while I was going, Michael started talking to me, and I forgot what I was doing and turned to talk to him."
Yes, ladies and gentlemen. This boy forgot he was peeing, and turned, mid-urination, to reply to his classmate. You can't make this stuff up.
Ace Ventura Hair
We recently had some extremely hot weather. Our playground is surrounded by buildings, and is about 10 degrees hotter in the summer, and 10 degrees colder in the winter. Regardless of the weather, you can always count on the boys to run around constantly, completely unphased by the oppressive, nauseating heat. We'd always have to have a cool-down time in the classroom after recess to recover from the surface of the sun that we had been playing on.
On one of these particularly hot days, the boys were cooling off in the classroom right after recess. All was mellow, until I heard some snickering. I looked up, and one of the boys had styled his sweaty hair to look like Ace Ventura. For those unfamiliar with Ace Ventura....
Doritos Mouth
This past week, I picked up on a very funny incident during snack time. The boys who sit in the group right next to my desk were all talking about - who knows what they were talking about. Two of them are HUGE talkers who talk a mile-a-minute, incessantly. I guess one got fed up with the other, and I heard him say, "Dude, I will give you five Doritos if you will just stop talking for the rest of snack time."
I thought this to be HILARIOUS since the one who made the request is the biggest talker out of the class. I called him out on it too, obviously.
I told him, "Don't you think it's funny that you - the person who talks the most, always, everywhere, at any given time of day - would be bribing someone ELSE to stop talking??"
His only response was a huge smile with a mouth full of Doritos.
Buzzards at a ... Funeral Home?
Since the weather was so lovely last week, we ate lunch outside on the playground. Some of the boys were sitting on the ground next to the bench where I was sitting. They were chatting away about this and that, when they started talking about what they'd seen on different road trips they had been on. One of the sweet, innocent, adorable ones was talking about driving to Austin the week before, and passing a funeral home.
"So we're driving back from Austin, and we pass this funeral home. There are buzzards EVERYWHERE...all over the parking lot and on top of the building, and I just thought, 'There must be a whole lot of dead people in there!"'
Bathroom Shakes
One of the battles a teacher often has to deal with is phony bathroom requests. Since I give scheduled bathroom breaks, my rule is that you may only go to the restroom if it's an emergency. Emergency means you are going to pee yourself in the next five minutes.
Well, the boys weren't really getting this rule. They were totally abusing it during the first two weeks of school. You get to the point where you can tell if it's really an emergency by the way they ask. If they're asking casually, it's probably not a very pressing issue. When it IS an emergency, there is a certain pleading look in their eyes, and they're usually bouncing around and shaking their body.
I, unfortunately, made the mistake of telling them the signs of a bathroom emergency, so now they'll come up to me and WAY overexaggerate the pleading eyes and bouncing around. As annoying as it is...it's also pretty funny.
On a serious note....
Strong Enough
This story is more serious than funny. The boys have a memory verse that they must memorize every week for a quiz, and then random classes are chosen to recite the verse in chapel on Friday. This past week's memory verse was Philippians 4:13 - "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength". As I was driving to school on Wednesday morning, I was listening to a song by Matthew West called "Strong Enough". The song is about how we're not strong enough to handle things on our own, but God is strong enough to help us through anything. In the end of the song, Matthew West says, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength, and I don't have to be strong enough."
Here is the song:
I decided to play the song for the boys and have them follow along with the lyrics on the smartboard. At the end of the song, I explained its meaning and how lucky we are to be at a school where we can openly talk about our faith and values. I told them that even though they're young, some of them have been through hard things and have had to rely on God for strength. (So true, as one of them has a brother battling brain cancer, many have divorced parents, among many other issues.) I also told them that even if they haven't been through any big trials, they will probably experience hardships at some point in their life and will need to know that God is always there for them.
When I finished talking, one of them raised his hand.
He said, "When my parents got divorced, it was really hard. My sister cried a lot, but I didn't cry. It still hurt really bad, but I know God was there for me."
Such a sweetheart, and such pure and strong faith. I had to compose myself before I could talk again.
That is about all I have for now. I am positive that there will be more silly things happening, and hopeful that there will be more inspirational things happening.
Until next time!
