Halala Mama

I have the most boring dreams.  I wake up from dreams about grading papers, kids at school, my family, etc. They typically bore Lorie to death because hers often involve technicolor interactions with friends, celebrities and I would not be surprised if somtimes clowns were involved.

Things have picked up in the dream department lately.

Last night, I had a very involved, elaborate dream about how my car was stolen from a parking lot.  I’m assuming it was a Wal-Mart.  In some long drawn out only possible in a dream process I found myself investigating the theft myself.  I guess the police weren’t showing my Taurus the love.  Anyway, I was in the security office at the store scanning video tapes, because they just let anybody do that you know. The tapes showed a blue pickup truck pull up and a blonde woman with a teen jumped out and walked straight to my car.  The kid hotwired it and they both drove off.

The blonde?  Was Brittany Murphy.

Apparently she is alive and well and stealing cars in Wal Mart parking lots?

When I tell people I teach sixth, seventh, and EIGHTH grade history, they groan….”oh middle school…that’s a rotten age.”

Middle schoolers have their faults to be sure, but I find it to be an interesting transition time between elementary and high school. They can tie their own shoes and are self-cleaning.   They are old enough to joke with and not old enough to drive away.  A captive audience if you will.

What I do not teach is first grade….I do not want to be responsible for teaching a child how to read or their multiplication tables.  Their little minds have to learn very big things.  I also don’t want to teach the important first grade lesson of “Yes, we have to zip our pants every time we leave the restroom.”

Yet, I am now tutoring my husband’s first grade second cousin in addition.  Math facts. Number sense.

I warned her mother on Sunday, “after about an hour, she will be finished.  She doesn’t have the attention span to work on this for much longer than that….”  because she is seven and the fact that the Super Bowl was coming on in two hours which meant I wouldn’t have the attention span either.

We worked on flash cards and she did very well.  However, when the same problems were displayed on a worksheet she couldn’t remember the answers.

Suddenly, “My back hurts.”  Really?  “Yes,” she said, “my back hurts really, really, really bad.  Can I use the bathroom?”

She returned. “My back still hurts really bad.”  She smelled like mouth wash.  WHAT?  We let her call her mother and ask for her to come get her.  Her mother told me, “Give her half of an Alieve and have her sit down, I’ll be there soon.”

As “soon” in African terms means before the coming millennium I wasn’t too certain about her imminent arrival.

I was pretty sure I was being played, so I didn’t offer medication. I KNEW I was being played when she eyed my coffee cup and said, “sometimes when I don’t feel good my mommy gives me coffee.”  Rrrrrright.

Well played little girl, well played, but remember, I teach middle schoolers and they are far more crafty and practiced than you.  Try again.

Opening the back door …..

is as close as we are getting to all this today.

Unless the fact that we are out of Diet Coke becomes a national emergency.  And it might.