Shitty day

One of the other third grade teachers was absent today. They couldn't get a substitute to come to our school for her so we had to split her class between the three that were left. It meant that I would have five additional students in my room for the day. In itself not too bad sounding but it really changes the dynamic of the room. A classroom becomes it's own little community with it's own culture. When you suddenly add several people, it changes the culture.

Again not necessarily a bad thing but this is the second time this week that it has happened. Also it just happened that one of the students that would be in my room likes to pick fights. Well it just happens that the students in my room like to fight. That really isn't a good combination.

I broke up two full on fist fights in my classroom this morning. No one was hurt and we got back to class fairly quickly after each one.

It was planned that a group was coming to the school to look around and make sure that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. This is stressful because our school is rated at a C and will probably be a D next year. We are under the microscope and things aren't looking good. Of course they were scheduled to come after school, you know, like when all of the kids were gone.

We then find out that the Superintendent of the district would be "stopping" in for a quick walk through. That's great. We really needed someone extra to come on over and add to the stress. We are a very large district. Actually in the top 10 largest for the entire United States of America. So for the Superintendent to come is really a big deal. Whatever to me but a big deal to most people who care.

I found this out just minutes before I noticed the smell. Now working in an elementary school means that there will be odors from time to time. I like to refer to it as "kidstink" but whatever you want to call, kids can get funky sometimes. But this smell was beyond your usual funk. This was much, much worse.

It turns out that the sewer pipes were baked up and it was spilling raw sewage onto the floor of the bathroom in the back of my classroom. Now, I tried to ignore this stench for awhile but just could not. I was getting sick and we needed to leave the classroom. It was a real adventure.

Luckily the rest of the day went much better. I mean it almost has to at that point but it really did improve. I spent the last hour of the school day calling parents from my cell phone. See we don't have phones in the classroom. So I can't use the school phone during class time to call a parent. So I use my cell phone while I stand in the back of the room and try to keep all of the other children quiet while I do it so I don't seem like a lunatic screaming, "Shut up!!!" while I try to convince a parent that their angel was really kicking a helpless kindergarten in the back.

I did have a wonderful evening with my family. I made dinner tonight so Mr. Husband didn't have to. I spent time with Middle Child and helped #1 with his homework. I even got to sit on the porch, which was nice and cool and rock with Baby Girl sitting on my lap. We watched people play tennis across the parking lot and talked. I got to comb her hair and sniff its sweet smell. I curled into bed with her and she was so tickled that I would do that. I wanted to stay in there with her but it was only 7:30 and I really don't want to wake up at 3:00am.

So it seems that the shitty day worked itself out.