A Gummy Kind of Love

   I teach 6 year olds. I love it. It's challenging, rewarding, and EXHAUSTING...but, I love it. My freshman year in college, I worked in an after-school daycare program. I vowed to everyone around me that I would NEVER work in a school. (I probably need to throw that word out of my vocabulary come to think of it. I have to eat it...alot.) Anyway, here I sit nearly 5 years of this madness under my belt.

   I wouldn't trade it for the world. There's something amazing about meeting a child in the Fall whose level of knowledge is less than promising, only to find at the beginning of the Summer season they have blossomed into a new child so full of knowledge, that you barely remember the child you met a few short months back. It's a satisfying feeling knowing that you had a part in shaping that little mind for his/her benefit.

   Each year my biggest fear is that I will not love my new class nearly as much as I had loved my previous one. I'm amazed each year when I prove my theory wrong. Each little darling who has walked through my classroom door has a very special place in my heart. When I get a new student...the same theory errupts my "Utopia" and I get a little annoyed and anxious about how in the world I will ever have enough love and attention for all 24 students under my care. Again, I prove myself wrong every time. 

   That's what's special about love; especially about a teacher's love. It's like bubble gum. That one piece loses flavor quick, so you pop in another one to accompany it. Pretty soon you've got this HUGE sticky, messy, glob, that will stretch for MILES and stick to anything it touches. That's a teacher's love...new students enter, pop in another wad, chew on it a bit, repeat, and pretty soon that messy, sticky, glob of love will stick to each and every one of her students.

   This year, I have a class full particularly pleasant pupils. I tell them constantly that they are "magical". They've even started referring to themselves as that. We live in our classroom called "Magic Land"; Utopia...until next year anyway (when Utopia is recreated once again). Anyway, I decided that today was as good a day as any to tell my magical children that Mrs. B is expecting a Baby B.

   I borrowed a book from one of my collegues called, Brown Bear's Wonderful Secret. (My collegue had used this a few years back to announce her pregnancy to her class, so I totally stole her idea!) It's a sweet little story about a bear who is trying to get her friends to guess her secret, that she's expecting. Super cute! So, I read the book and I told them I had a secret too. :)

   Here's a clip from the reveal:

  I just love their sweet little reaction! Magical, I tell you. If you listen closely, you'll hear one of them say, "Man! I KNEW it! All y'all owe me $20!" I laughed out loud at that. Then came the question (dum dum duuuuuuum). I was asked how you can tell the difference between a boy and a girl baby. "Do you have to look at their private parts? Because my momma told me you did." Quickly, I responded with the "I'm not a doctor" speech and changed the subject.

   Yep. There's a little snapshot of the fires I put out on a daily basis. From the mouths of innocent, sweet, babes. They are so precious. If I love my students this much (and they only spend 180 days with me) I can't imagine how much love will ooze from my pores for my little one. 

    I pray that my bubble-gum-love continues to stretch, grow, and stick to all the little lives I touch both past, present, and future. Oh, and that I will be better prepared for those innocent questions that require quite a bit of grown-up thinking.

    This is going to be quite an adventure! I'm so ready for it...I think!!! :)