Poop and other adventures in 1st grade

This was my day today:

8:01 a.m. : Picking up my students from the yard, two boys, Non-Stop (actually Joey, from a previous story) and Trouble, walk towards me with an office referral for hitting and pushing. Wow, what a way to start the morning!

8:02 a.m. : Drama Queen walks towards me, dragging her right leg like Tiny Tim. "The bones in my legs are all broken," she tells me. I say (because I really can't deal with a drama queen before school even starts) "I am sure you will be okay, go ahead and use the toilet and wash your hands. Let's see how you feel at recess." She drags her leg all the way to the classroom. Once in the class, however, she skips, hops and twirls to her way to her desk.

8:11 a.m.: School begins, thank you very much!

10:35 a.m. : As I collect the kids from the playground, I see Drama Queen crying hysterically. I take a deep breath and prepare myself for quite the sob story of death and destruction. So, since I am NOT prepared, I ignore her, hoping she will forget that she was crying in the first place. No such luck, she catches my eye and proceeds to sob about her broken arm. You see, Drama Queen fell (or maybe was pushed by Trouble) and hurt her elbow. I expect to see blood dripping from this wound, but no such luck. Dirt. Dirt is mostly all I see and in that dirt. . . a teeny, tiny, barely scratch. Seriously? All those tears?

I say, "I am sure you will be okay, why don't you use the toilet and wash your hands." She continues to sob all they way to bathroom (although not in it, in the bathroom she is swinging on the doors and giggling with her friends, but I digress). She sobs again coming out of the bathroom, and all the way down the hall, sobs when she stops to tie her shoe, and sobs all the way back to the classroom.

Now, I am not a mean teacher, but I can only take so many theatrics from Drama Queen a day. I tell her, "You need to stay outside until you calm down. Get some water and come on in." (Okay, first I checked her out again, I do have a heart.) She eventually calms down and comes on in. She does complain that it hurts when she puts her elbows down. "Then don't put your elbows down," I say.

Now, this post has gotten quite long, but the last story I really think is the best.

11:00 a.m. DingleBerry raises his hand and says to me, "My stomach hurts, and I think I need to go sit on the toilet." "Go ahead," I tell him and he is off! About 10 minutes later (really I have no idea how long, oops) he comes back in. He announces, loudly, "I had some trouble wiping my bottom."

Umm. . . what. . . I look at him, and he is standing at my door, his shirt is pulled up under his arms and his pants are not up all the way. I walk toward him, PRAYING, that is underwear is pulled up and I am not going to get a view of his poop. Thankfully the gods are with me today and his underwear is in fact up, in fact I can see his underwear because his pants are down below his butt.

Well, I don't think it says anywhere in my contract that I have to wipe butts, so I do the only thing I can think of. . . I write an office referral. The reason for the office visit to the nurse, "He had trouble wiping."

And while this poop story doesn't even come close to Cristin's, it is enough for me to be thankful that the nurse was on campus today.

I still think First Grade is REALLY HARD!