if children are our future, we are totally screwed.

Wednesday, September 15th

*since m and i stilllllll don’t have the internet (dying…. dying…..), i wrote this on a word doc at home and then loaded them onto the website at m’s office. so sorry for the confusion, but i’m having a hard time going more than a few days without writing*

today was my big day, oh-actual-saturday-but-kind-of-wednesday-readers. i went into six classrooms, grades three to five, and introduced myself and the concept of counseling to my new kiddos. i was nervous, of course. my hands were shaking and my heart was racing as i entered my first class, a third grade classroom. i set up my oversize drawing pad, on which i intended to record their profound child brain ideas, shuffled my notes (ok, side note: for all of you who know me well, you know how, well, neurotic and a bit ocd i can be, so this may not surprise you, but i made a powerpoint print out for my notes, with each topic having its own pages and my thought points following, ok, i accept and recognize that i am a bit too neurotic for comfort sometimes)

anyway, i turned and looked out onto the sea of little tiny people, took a deep breath and realized that… they were all eight years old. how in the world can i be nervous in a room full of eight year olds? these miniature people still believe in santa, the tooth fairy, still think its ok to pick their nose, still think that the opposite sex has cooties , still have a hard time forming complex sentences, etc etc  etc. so what if i mess up? i doubt most of them would even notice. at this point, i relaxed considerably and my presentation, and all five presentations thereafter, went off without a hitch. i was actually very proud of myself. i felt very comfortable presenting to the mini people. and they are hilarious! those of you who regularly work with children (hey teacher-friends!) will be well aware, but kids are super funny. some of the things that come out of their mouths are priceless.

apparently it had gotten out around school that i was the one from new york. i mean, everybody from the custodian to the principal seemed to be in awe of this fact. so it didn’t really come as a surprise when all of the small people wanted to ask me questions about new york. it got to the point where i would ask them if they had any questions and all of them would raise their hands, and then i would clarify “any questions about counseling?” and at least seventy five percent of them would put their hands down. so to be fair, i did answer some questions about new york. my favorites included:

-did you own a pet buffalo because you lived in buffalo?

-can you drown in snow?

-how tall is the statue of liberty?

-did you have friends in new york?

-does everyone have grass?

there were countless others, but those are the highlights. oh! and the butchering of my name was amazing! i was under the impression that my current last name is pretty straight forward and very pronounceable. not for the smallest residents of new mexico. i encountered every possible variation of my name. again, favorites included: ms. bright , ms. light, ms. white, and my personal favorite ms. might (will i or won’t i? i might). the world might explode when i  get married and take mike’s last name. at that point, i should probably just go by mrs. c.

for the last activity during my presentation, i asked the kiddos to fill out some information sheets so i could get to know them a bit. firstly, spelling is definitely not the tiny human’s strong point. the spelling was so funny that i took pictures of it with my cell phone and as soon as we get the all powerful internet i will post some (anonymous, of course) photos of the best misspellings i encountered. and even when the miniature beings spelled things correctly, some of their answers were fantastic. a few that made me chuckle:

question: some strengths i have….. answer: the bones in my legs (this child is very literal)

question: some strengths I have…. answer: muskles

question: my favorite song is….. answer: la bamba (this child actually came up to me and asked me, in a whisper, how to spell la bamba)

question: my favorite song is…. answer: poker face (this came from an eight year old boy)

question: my favorite food is….. answer: kanilop (at least kanilop is healthy)

and the one that takes the cake……

question: something that i am proud of is…. answer: last weekend, i caught a stripper (ok, so i am hoping that this particular child meant a striper, which is a fish, for those of you who aren’t familiar with our friends-with-gills, but hey, this is new mexico, and you never really know. maybe this child actually did catch an exotic dancer, and if so, good for him! i hear they are hard to come by in new mexico. it’s a red state after all. and, on the off chance that this child captured a lady of the night, i have a feeling i will definitely be seeing that child in my office for individual counseling)

until next time,

be thankful,

andie.