18: Xena Story

This morning went rather well in class. It is funny how the kids calm down and are rather tired on days that it is raining. Maybe because it seems dark outside and they think they should still be asleep. Not a lot happened during morning math, reading and coloring. The highlight of the morning was Sara nibbling a little on her crayon. However, when lunch came around the kids started to perk up.

Usually my assistant sits with the kids at lunch and I get a break, but she was out today. They were all excited to go to the lunchroom since it was a Thursday. Thursdays in our school is chocolate milk day, and they all get two small cartons of it with their lunch.

I had them all seated and I was helping them get situated when I noticed Misty standing up on her chair. She had been ranting about something she’d seen on Xena all morning. (Her parents bought her the first 2 seasons on DVD). She was holding the circular lid to her Tupperware in her hands and was telling Anni that it is her “Chakram” just like Xena’s (I looked it up--it’s some weapon Xena used).

All of a sudden she let’s out this warrior-like scream,

“Ah la la la la la la la la!”

I see Misty whip the lid as hard as she could. It flew, quite well I must say, across the room and nailed Steve in the forehead.

Steve sat for a second, and then summoned all his energy and let out a piercing wail. He let it out with so much force over a span of three minutes that he ended up crapping his pants.

I had to take him to the office to call his parents and explain what a red welt was doing on his forehead.

When I asked Misty about why she threw her Tupperware top at Steve she simply replied, “Steve is the enemy.”

12: Pee Water

Today Steve wet his pants. This by itself is not a strange thing to happen in my class, but with Steve it can present unique challenges. Steve is severely handicapped--both physically and mentally, and is confined to a motorized wheelchair.

We were playing with Lincoln logs and trying to work on counting and other coordination activities. Steve was banging his logs on the table in his puddles of drool, so I left him at that while I helped Sara with her counting. Sara informed me that Lincoln Logs reminded her of her grandma’s sausage.

Suddenly, I felt a light tap on my shoulder. Anni was standing there all giggling and smiling as she does often. She just kept giggling and didn’t say anything when I asked her what was going on, so I turned around to help Sara again.

Anni tapped me on the shoulder again. “Hehehehehe Miss Pell, hehehehe Stevie is leaking. Hehehe.”

Since Anni usually doesn’t make sense anyway, I ignored her for the second time to pick up Sara’s logs so she would not try to nibble/eat/swallow them. As I was putting them back in the bin, I felt another tap on my shoulder.

It was Jay this time. Now, Jay knows right from wrong. He has severe ADHD and he is a VERY slow learner, but other than that, he’s the most normal in the class.

He is holding Anni’s hand while she still giggles. He points at Steve, who from here I can see has a dark blue stain in the crotch of his baby blue sweat pants. There was so much urine that it managed to pour down the sides of his motorized chair. I was unclear when exactly the wetting had occurred, and was about to ask Jay about this when he says,

"Steve spilt water, but it tastes acky!,” he says while making a face like he just sucked a lemon.

Oh please no.

I called my TA and they took Steve to the office for cleaning. I then made Jay drink a lot of juice and wash his hands. I wouldn't tell him why, nor did I ask him how he knew what that "water" tasted like.

3: I can't eat at McDonald's anymore

Today was a special day for my kids. At the end of every month, they have a review. If they improved in any way, i.e. they learned how to color, or learned how say the name of a color correctly, or just don't grab their genitals in class, then we all go to McDonald’s for Happy Meals.

This month everyone did well in standards, so we planned a trip to McDonald’s for Wednesday. We always go around 10:30 since we don’t want to hold the line for lunch up.

One kid in particular, Erik, spends large amounts of time repeating, “Ma…don…al” and not saying what he wants. The conversation typically goes like this:

Me: “Chicken nuggets or a hamburger..”
Erik: “Ma…don…al”
Me: “Yes it is, now do you want chicken or cow?”
Erik: “Ma…don….al.”
Me: “You can’t eat Ronald, it’s either chicken or cow.”
Anni: “Look….milking!” (as she squeezes her nippies)

Today went more smoothly…except for Stevie passing gas at the front on the line. I had to take a 5-minute break from ordering and the manager had to spray deodorizer. It was that bad. It was the very worst thing I had ever smelled in my life.

Imagine a kid in a wheel chair that just drools and can’t pronounce words, he can only point. His breakfast usually consists of those protein/vitamin milk drinks and some kind of bran muffin. (he sometimes has constipation problems). Now imagine the bran and milk leaving his body in gas form, and occasionally, in pungent liquid form.

This stench was so bad it caused many customers and a few employees to vacate the restaurant and has ruined me on McDonald’s since.