Working at a school can be fun…and interesting…and draining…and
FUNNY
And anyone that works at a school cannot possibly explain what a first day of the school year is like…because no one would believe us.
Honest…and you know what I’m talking about if you’re one of us….
We’re the ones that sign up year after year for this….because we love it.
And we’re dedicated.
Even when….
A parent tries to drop their child off in the middle of heavy traffic and wants to know if you are serious when you tell the child to get back in because it is too dangerous and for mom to proceed to the designated safe spot. (BTW – we’re serious about keeping your kids safe.)
Or, a parent is too impatient to wait for you to cross them, so they plunge ahead while you put your life at risk with flag and body to stop traffic from hitting them…because we’re just nice like that.
Then there’s Kindergartner who has never been away from mom who tries to make a run for it. And then cries because his little heart is broken…and yet, with patience and determination…and a lot of kindness, he learns to relax and enjoy his first, first day of school.
And the many elementary students who forgot what the name of their teacher is…or how to find the bathroom…or….or
Then there’s the older secondary student who is supposed to be picked up by the bus…only a near …relative …decides to take him home…but both the relative and the student forget to let the school or mom know that the bus is no longer needed because they have taken the student home. Forget that you’ve ran around the campus in three digit weather looking for the child who really isn’t missing after all; not to mention needlessly worried a parent…
Most of all, there’s the exhaustion of hundreds of parents asking you hundreds of questions….
And what feels like hundreds of students against one of you….
And you go home at the end of the day completely exhausted….but content…because you made it through the first day of the school year.
And you’ll forever remember that one thing that stood out.
Like the 1st grader who is standing off by himself while everyone else is lining up..so you go and ask him what’s up? Why are you over here by yourself?
And you get a bewildered…”I just don’t know how it happened?”
And you hesitate to ask…because you never know what the answer is…but you ask anyway, “How what happened?”
To which he replies, “I don’t know how it happened…it just popped out?”
And you tentatively ask, “How what popped out?” (all the while praying he isn’t talking about a bone…)
And then he holds out his hand and replies, “My tooth.”
And with a great big sigh of relief, you take yet another child to the health office so he can put his tooth in a tiny little treasure box to take home to his mother…
Whose probably upset that she missed that moment when….her child’s tooth just….popped….out.