I went back to work last week, but today was the first day of school. I should have been ready. I came off of a four-day weekend. I spent three of the days at the beach, and one day at the pool, playing wiffle ball and darts and water polo and eating. But can anything really prepare you for 18 preschoolers? No, not really.
It's a pretty cute class, with the exception of 1 or 2. I've got a pair of red-headed twins, one of which looks a bit like Conan O'Brian. I've got a little punk kid who thinks he's king of the classroom. I've got a spanish speaker who spent the first half of the morning crying to me in spanish, but turned off the tears when I told her we were having apples for snack.
And then I've got a devil child, who I'm sure will replace the void that last year's Biter left in my heart. This kid is hard, but to make it worse, he speaks 2 languages: French, and Hebrew with a French accent. I am 0 for 2 in those languages. He spent the day pushing kids off of chairs, hitting kids with shovels, and wandering around the room and taking out every single puzzle when I had corralled the 17 others into morning circle time. When I wasn't looking, because I was dealing with the kid who had just been pushed off his chair by Devil Boy, D.B. had climbed up onto the kid-sized fridge, which is a good four feet tall. He was just hanging out, getting a bird's eye view of the room. I'm hoping that once he realizes that more than half of the class also speak Hebrew, he'll start playing with other kids, and aggravate me a bit less.
But even with all of the other nice, sweet kids, I forgot how exhausted I get at school. I came home, had my afternoon snack, and napped for nearly two hours. And I sort of feel like I should be in bed by 8 to rest up for tomorrow.
