Teacher Mama

Ah, Friday...I tell you, it is a lovely feeling on Fridays when all my lovelies are sent home and I stand alone in my classroom. I love knowing that for the next few days my time is my own. I don't have to do too much thinking about school, grades, and schedules. I don't have to listen to any tattle-tailing, complaints about homework, or conversations about bodily functions while I'm eating. I love teaching, but I tell you there are some weeks that I am very ready for the weekend.

Today marked the end of a particularly long week and so when I got home I was very glad indeed. I waited patiently for the bus, enjoying some much needed quiet time and a nice cup of English tea. Soon enough Abby pulled up and after a quick spin on the mower with Dada we went inside. She immediately got to work emptying her backpack, something she doesn't normally do. It soon became clear that she was looking for something, because as she emptied she talked about "playing hearts". I wasn't sure what she was muttering about until she pulled out some pieces of paper that she had colored. It seems that they played a matching game at school where they matched numbers to dots. I was game to play, and as I laid the pieces out on the coffee table, Abby went to get her little chair. We played for a while and she did a great job. We counted, we matched, and she was spot on when I quizzed her.

Soon she tired of that. She sat back after I'd cleared the table and told me to "give her a clue". Hmmmm...a clue? I asked her what I was supposed to give her a clue about and she just repeated (a bit louder) that I was Mrs. Currie and I was supposed to give her a clue. Apparently they'd played other games at school that weren't so easy for me to discover. After getting extremely frustrated that I wasn't following her, she gave up - but still insisted I was the teacher. She sat at her "desk" waiting for me to "teach" her.

I gave her a book.

That didn't really work. She pushed the coffee table out of the way, handed the book back to me, and sat down on the carpet - criss-cross applesauce with her hands in her lap. In her mind I wasn't done teaching. So, as she (and Bruiser) sat on the carpet, I read them a story about snowdays and snowmen. I made sure to read upside-down, so she could see all the pictures, and stop often to ask questions about connections to what was happening - like any good teacher does when reading to her class.

When the story was finished she finally let me move on to something else, but tonight as I thought about our time together I had to smile because it seems that I wasn't quite done with teaching at 3, as I had originally thought, but then again no parent is ever done teaching - are they?

At least she didn't tattle on Bruiser.

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Pleased as punch