At the end of the day on Monday, I knew it was time to start counting down the days left of school for the year. By the end of the week, I was counting down minutes left in each day. Every action the sevens make and every word they speak escalates just a notch day by day. At year's end, they'll be bubbling over -- which happened literally to one particular boy yesterday.
In a brief lapse of judgment, I let my last hour choose seats for work time. Boy S sat next to Boy J and each proceeded to poke, tickle, tease, and write on the other. Nothing atypical. Yet, when Boy S really gets giggling, he . . . well . . . vomits. Yep. Right there on the floor. You can imagine the chaos that ensues when a child hurls in the classroom. First, there's the clearing of space anywhere near the chunk blower and his puddle. Then, there's the screaming and opening of windows. Finally, the recapping of the incident by every child in the room even though they were all right there. Angles differ, I guess.
I, on the other hand, had two main concerns: a) calm the boy who will forever be known as the Giggling Vomiter, and b) get that shit cleaned up. After calling for back up, I took Boy S to the door and wrote him a pass to the nurse. He felt fine, but the arc of the projectile liquid did not quite clear his clothing. "S," I said, "Don't worry. These things can happen." To myself, I thought, "Like hell they do, you freak."
He replied, "Yeah. This is the third time."
Then I couldn't help myself. "S," I looked him straight in the eye. "I take it back. This isn't normal. You've got to get it together. You can't go through life vomiting spontaneously." I said this with a smile because Boy S is also prone to spontaneous crying. With his bottom lip quivering, he took the pass and left the room, and I calculated that my own private hell would last eighteen minutes and 42 seconds longer.
7 comments:
Tell me you won't miss all of this!!
Oh my goodness. So funny. I'll try not to vomit.
i think we have 15 days left. yeeha.
Ugh. A boy hurled in my class last year. I got all the kids in the hallway, so George, the custodian, could clean it up. George doesn't have great eyes, so I had to check and make sure he got everything. My students eat fish and rice for breakfast, so there were lots of bits and pieces. George had to go back and clean up four times. He's a trooper.
I've had this happen a lot to me, mostly because little kids have a harder time controlling it. And also that some little kids use that as a way to get what they want, S tried that once, she started to gag because she didn't want to eat what I gave her (which she has eaten tons of times before), I told her that if she threw up she will still need to finish eating, so she stopped gagging. I hate cleaning up vomit.
Thanks for the perspective. Clearly, things could have been worse.
GREAT story. I can't wait to tell AJ - for some reason, puke and poop make good stories. Unlike all these others, I have no stories to share about puke on me. Well, except for the time my boss didn't believe that I was sick and needed to go home until the sick was all over the floor for the whole store to witness. Needless to say, I got to go home.
I know you may not miss these stores, but I sure will....
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