JEEBUS FRIES!

Today was my last day subbing. Tomorrow I start training on the boats.

I spent the morning as an aide to a Kindergarten special needs boy. He's off his meds, and shall be referred to as Hyper. Most of my vocabulary this morning consisted of "Hyper, no running! Hyper, you can play on the computer after you do your worksheet. Hyper, don't you want to share?"

Despite being Hyper, he still remembered his "polite" words...most of the time.

Me: Hyper, come color this flower for your mom.

Hyper: NO THANK YOU!!!!1!!OMGWTF

Me: Hyper, what color do you want your card to be? Pink?

Hyper: NO THANK YOU!!1!!1!

Me: Hyper, if you can't be nice, you can't play on the computer.

Hyper: *shoves me* GO AWAY PLEASE!!1!!!one!!

Other times, he left off the polite words, ran down the hallway...when we were going to speech, he tried to hold the door closed once he got in the room to prevent me from following. Luckily, he's a puny 5-year-old.

He was actually a nice kid, just, as has been stated, Hyper.

At lunchtime, I sat with Hyper and some of his female classmates. Suddenly, one of them said to me, "You're my big sister in God's way."

Me: Uh...yes, that's right. Actually, everyone is your brother or sister...in God's way.

Girl 2: Yes, and God is our daddy.

Girl 3: And our mommies are all God's wives!

Girl 2: God isn't married!

Girl 1: And JESUS is our biggest brother of ALL!

Me: ...

After lunch, the Kindergarteners go home, and I had to take Hyper and one of his male classmates to the SpEd bus. Because they go home earlier than any other grade, the SpEd bus parks with the regular buses in the bus lane, instead of behind the school. However, the only contact I'd had with the SpEd bus before was when I was putting a 4th grader on it, and it parked behind the school.

So I was figuring we had to go behind the school to get to their bus.

Hyper ran ahead of us while I was lagging behind with Male Classmate, trying to put a paper in his backpack. I glanced down and when I looked up again, Hyper had disappeared...toward the regular bus lane.

I took off running through the cafeteria, with poor Male Classmate struggling to keep up. I saw Hyper push open the door, then push it shut behind him, the little twerp. By the time I got to the door, he was already climbing into a bus. I yelped at Male Classmate "STAY HERE!" And lunged toward the bus...the...SpEd bus.

"Oh!" I gasped to the driver who was looking at me with an expression of something like incredulity. "I thought you guys parked around back!"

"Not for Kindergarteners," he replied.

Oops.

So I trudged back to the door where Male Classmate was waiting in the foyer, staring at me with saucer-sized eyes.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Nothing. Sorry. Come on."

I put him on the bus without further problems. I felt like a dumbass, and from the way the driver and the aide on the SpEd bus were looking at me, that's apparently what I'd looked like, too.

After I ate lunch, I went to the junior high. The rest of my day was spent with a 14-year-old 7th grader (she looked 10) who was possibly the sweetest junior high student on the face of the planet. She corrected some papers, read me her speech for the living wax museum the junior highers are doing on Friday (she's gonna be Harriet Tubman) then spend the rest of the time reading from a handout.

Is it God day or something?

She, too, brought up religion--asked me if I went to church. I said no, and she asked if I wanted to go to her church. They're having a dinner, she told me, and a sermon...it's the First Baptist, just down the road!

I told her that it was very nice of her to offer, but I had to get home.

She seemed sort of disappointed when she asked why.

I will probably burn in hell for telling a little white lie--I need to get home and let my dog out. Which actually didn't turn out to be such a lie, as it turns out. Mom was working outside (still is) and Summer was inside (punishment for running off to play with Kate, the neighbor's dog, when mom had her out earlier).

When I got home, I helped mom carry her fake-flower-covered arch out to the garden and nearly got eaten by the 747s disguised as mosquitoes in the 15 minutes I was out there.

Subbed for another aide to a special needs child today. He was a Kindergartener, and a cute kid, if a bit difficult. He pouted and whined and didn't enunciate, but at least he didn't scratch me or anything. I took him to one of the resource rooms and let him play in an inflatable pool filled with plastic balls for a while, and he did his classwork quickly (for the most part) and efficiently. He did get upset when he wasn't one of the line leaders, though. Whew. Pouted all the way to lunch and all the way back. And while he was AT lunch, he went to get a cup for his milk and stopped next to the little girl who WAS the lineleader to tell her that HE was gonna be the line leader. Cheeky little fellow.

I took him to the bus at 12:45 and then I spent the afternoon with the preschoolers. I met them in the library while they listened to a story, then we went to the gym and let them run around and jump over a jump rope a bunch of different ways. One of the boys, a rather chubby kid who just turned 4 (and so adorable) got his whole body into the jumps. The teacher told him to jump with both feet over the rope, like his feet were glued together. He would bend way, WAY over, and swing up his arms and jump as high as he could...and would go maybe 2 inches. So cute.

One of the other little boys was sort of a special needs kid, I'd say, but he had someone who was sort of trying to keep him in check. HE scratched me. And pinched me. And didn't listen, but whatever. One of the little girls was the most adorable thing ever. She had wispy blonde hair and wore glasses and her backpack was bigger than she was.

AND. AND. A lady came in with a basket full of FIVE BABY BUNNIES. She had dyed them pastel colors with Koolaid. The little kids got to hold them. And then I got to hold them! SQUEE BABY BUNNIES!

Tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday there is testing going on in the school so I'm going to be roaming the halls and making sure that people are being quiet and running errands for teachers and stuff. When Beth called me for that job she said "Make sure you wear comfortable shoes!" Oh dear.