Love ya, Lee! and a little Harry update!

I'm loving tropical storm Lee right now, because my school doesn't have power so I have the day off! I have power at home, which is just one of the many plus sides of living twenty minutes away from the district in which you teach. This is just ridiculously convenient for me, since Jon and I woke up at 3:45 am yesterday to drive a Uhaul truck back from VA. Yes, that really happened. 

We got such an early start for a number of reasons,  one being that I thought if we got to Bham at a decent time, I would unpack, maybe do some laundry and get ready for the week. That did not happen! We got into town at 4, but neither of us felt like being productive. Jon cleaned his new guns that my dad gave him and I fell asleep in the couch... shocking!

Anyway, I know you've been anxiously waiting to hear all about the new class. The thing is they are kinds boring.... That's not nice of me to say and don't start boring equals easy, but I just don't have that many crazy hilarious kids this year! I did however start out with 23 of them which is one reason I didn't feel like blogging about them! 23 first graders is not okay! However, I had 2 kids withdraw last week. They both moved and I swear I didn't do anything to them! That kind of luck kind of makes me nervous...

I do have Pepe's cousin in my class this year and she is super sweet. Her name will be..."Gloria"! That name just popped in my head because she is a very pretty little girl and then I thought of Gloria from Modern Family, random I know! 

She is very sweet and very into me being preggo. I was moving a desk the other day and she dramatically put her hands up to her face and said "oh no Miss Pate, you going to hurt your baby!" She was seriously worried and did not approve of what I was doing. None of my other kids cared.

I have another hispanic student that I love. His name is going to be Elvis.  He is a little too proficient in English if you ask me! JK, he just never ever stops talking! I asked him the other day if anyone in his house speaks Spanish and he said "yeh, sometimes my dad does...like when he talks with his friends and when he drinks". I believe it Elvis! If you have children, let this be a lesson for you. They ALL go to school and tell their teacher EVERYTHING!

Lastly, I want to let you all know that Harry is doing well this year. He is in the classroom next door to me, so I see him a lot. He's not really very into me this year, but I'm trying not to take this personally! His teacher is one and my friends and she gives me updates frequently. One of his new habitats is getting into her desk and tearing up pads of post-its. I have witnessed the after math of these post-it explosions and I'm just glad he didn't do this last year! He has also used his scissors to cut up a library book! Now you may be wondering "when does this kid have time to do these things?" It's when she is dealing with the other 20 kids in her class. If you focus on getting a kid like Harry to sit down/focus all day you won't get anything else accomplished! I'm sure he is occasionally roaming around the room a little, and if it's a quiet roam, you just let him do it! 

Today would have only been the 20th day of school, so hopefully Harry will chill out soon. At this point last in my class he was still cocooning himself in the bottom shelf of a bookcase....

Harry Update

I know after the way Harry and I started the year off, you have to be wondering what he's been up to lately. 

Well the truth is he is doing so well that he has been tough to blog about recently. 

I guess I cured him! 

JK, I wish.

(Mom-JK means "just kidding")

He has been letting kids push him on the swings recently and even considered giving a few hugs in moments of excitement! His little arms were stopped by some force once he got into "hug" position. 

He will let you hug him if he has fair warning, but he doesn't quite understand how to hug back. However, today when I asked for a hug he actually hugged back. It was pretty ground breaking.

I realize you may not care about this Harry kid and his hugging habits, but if you could have seen him freak out when someone even looked like they were about to touch him two months ago, you would understand my excitement. 

Now don't go getting tearing eyed or anything about our progress. 

I did watch him slink out of his seat during music class to go eat a delicious crumb out of some one's desk. He has x-ray vision too, I guess...

And, he did burp in my face today. 

I said "um, excuse you" and he goes "yes! excuse you!".

"No, you say 'excuse me'".

So Harry said "excuse me".

He has this funny/creepy look in his eye sometimes that makes me think this is all a big game to him and I am his all time fave opponent!

He also told me yesterday that "he wonders how I will make it in this world"...

BIG NEWS

My sister, the "undercover turkey lover" a.k.a Carrie, worked really hard last night so that you never have to miss a post from your favorite blogger. Now you can subscribe to forty.nine.twenty and receive emails whenever there is a new post! 

Exciting! 

I know!

Now if your name happens to be Leslie Wyatt, Donie Wyatt, Jon Pate, or Breese Anderson there's a slight chance I already subscribed you!
(just make sure you confirmed the link that was sent to you!) 

Hehe.

I knew that was what you would have wanted anyway. I was just so excited that subscribing myself to my own blog wasn't satisfying enough. 

In other news, Mr. Principal did come pay us a visit and he answered all of our burning questions. I didn't learn much, but my kids were satisfied. His answers were all very "PC".

The whole time everybody was super quiet and attentive. Harry was sat nicely and quietly repeated most of what Mr. Principal said.

But then, after about twenty minutes of this one man show, Harry starts saying 

"Time! Time's up! Time!" 

It was pretty perfect and he was kind of right. Mr. Principal wrapped it up and got out of there to go make the afternoon announcements.

Happy Friday- yes you have to read all of this!

I know that it is not Friday, but y'all! Seriously! You would not believe the hilariousness at school this past Friday!

I am really conflicted over this theory that I'm brewing up, but I'm thinking that on Fridays my mood is so drastically elevated by the day of the week, that I am soak up their little funnies more easily. Does that make sense at all?

I tried to take note of everything little thing that made me giggle, so here you go:

This is how our day started out:

Yes, that's Harry in the backpacks. I bet you've been wondering about Harry. He's still up to his ol' tricks.  This morning he spent a few extra minutes in the closet. He can't put his backpack on just any hook, but he has't committed to one in particular either, so sometimes we go through this. Guess I need to label a hook with his name, but for today I just giggled for a bit. And, yes I blurred his little face. 

High tech, I know.

After lunch, one of my boys tells me his "broken bone is hurting him real bad". This is confusing considering this kid doesn't have a broken bone! 

So I ask him, "Your broken bone?". He is clutching his stomach and telling me, "yeh, my bone in here is broken".  I say, "Okay, your stomach hurts?". And said boy just nods his head like "duh lady, that's what I've been telling you!"

Later on, I hear one of my cutest little boys say to someone in line "Did you know that I wished upon a star to get happy faces and it's working?!" 

I kid you not. It came out of his mouth. And he must be telling the truth because it is hard for him to get happy faces. We are talking about ADHD poster child here. Hilarious!

In the afternoon, we made turkeys. The class next door made them before us and when the teacher was showing them how to make the gobble gobble, a hispanic boy said "yeh, like a goblin!".
She said "no, not like a goblin", but he was already on to explaining to the class what the goblin looked like.
He was telling them about the green slime oozing out of the eyeballs when she chimed in and said, "wow, Jeraldo you have been some nasty TV, lately." He goes "What? We got Netflix now?"

We had a different discussion during turkey time.
My little friend that's been wishing upon stars told us that he shot a turkey once. I got it out of him that he meant "his dad shot the turkey", but all of this reminded Jose of something about his dad. Jose announces "My dad says in Mexico there are too many turkeys, so he killed one and brought it back for Thanksgiving!". Little Mr. ADHD  quickly corrects him, "Jose! Turkeys don't come from Mexico! You shoot them on a farm!"

I mean, honestly so much happened today that I am going to save the rest for another post. I know I don't like reading super long posts on blogs! Hope your Friday was eventful as ours was!

I hate to tell you this...

One of my favorite little friends made a funny today. We'll call him Cardarius. My kids have book boxes that they keep about three books in to bring to their desk when they finish something early. Cardarius came to my desk and said:

"Miss Pate, I need new books. These are English books!" 

"What language books do you think you need?"

"I don't know, but I can't read these English books!" 

"That's not because it's the wrong language; you just can't read all of those words yet."

"Oohhhh".

 He thought he had it all figured it out-Mrs. Pate stocks her room full of books in some crazy foreign language! I'm actually surprised more of them don't come to me with this same problem. When nobody at home ever reads a book with you, it probably does look like a foreign language! 

And if you are wondering why this post is titled "I hate to tell you this...", it's just because that's Harry's new thing. He says it all day, but he won't say the rest. I get his sayings stuck in my head. If he ever finishes that sentence, I'll be sure to let you know what it is. I'm actually kinda nervous.

What do you think it could be? 

But he also sings "Watch the show, then you'll know!" in a really high pitched voice. Maybe, if I can figure out what that show is and watch, I'll finally get it! I'm becoming a little "special" myself, I think. 

Next winter, I'm staying in bed!

Today started out pretty normal; Harry was curled up in the bottom shelf of my bookshelf. Which I'm pretty sure this is not what his previous teacher had in mind she told me he would need to find a safe spot to sit each morning. He rocked in his kindergarten teacher's chair and he cocoons himself in his first grade teacher's bottom shelf. Hmmmm. 

Well when I went to get him out, I said "Come on Harry, it's time for you to start your morning work". He came on out, but you could tell he was very bothered by this. He announced, "Next winter, I'm staying in bed!". I said okay Harry, but I was really thinking "how about tomorrow morning? Care to stay in bed then?". No not really. I'm just kidding-kinda.

Later at lunch, it got bad. A kid from another class threw up all over the floor in the lunchroom. Gross. Then about 2 minutes later the kid sitting directly across from me threw up in his tubberware sandwich thing! I had to thank him for being "tidy" about it, but then I realized his tidiness meant I had to clean it up! If he had thrown up all over the floor, the nice lunch ladies would sprinkle that smelly powder on it and sweep it up! I just threw the thing away. I wrote his mom a note. I hope she understands, but it she doesn't oh well. I'd rather buy tubberware than clean up puke any day!

So what's your point?

It may be getting a little less scary in Mrs. Pate's room. I'm won't say much else-I may jinx it!

I have heard some funny things come out of these little ones mouth's lately though, which helps get you through the day.

Last Friday, Harry came in with the aide that brings him in and gets him settled. On the way down the hall to my room he told her " I am SO HAPPY TODAY". That's always a good sign with Harry. She explained his morning work assignment and he got started; another shocking and amazingly good sign when it comes to him!

They were writing their sight words five times each and after he wrote the word 'you' twice he looked at her so straight faced and said "so, what's your point here?". She tried not to laugh and told him that she didn't have one, but Mrs. Pate wants him to do the assignment. He thought about it and then decided to finish. Of course it seems pointless to him; he is brilliant and does not need to be working on the word 'you'. What he really is working on is sitting at his desk and following directions!  But we sure as hell can't tell Harry that!

Another really cute little boy makes me giggle a lot. He is Hispanic, and ironically he might be the most articulate kid in my class (most of the time). Last week, he was getting really frustrated with the pencil situation at his table. He said "Miss Pate, all our pencils keep 'dissing-appear'!". I didn't answer him at first and thought maybe he would correct himself, but then he just repeated it about five more times and, of course louder. So I told him that he meant "disappearing" and he just looked at me like "OK but what are you going to do about my pencils?".

Today he did it again, but this time it was "dissing-appearing". So I guess he'll get there. Maybe next week.

this duck is done...and it's only the second day!

Yesterday was the first day of school and it was...scary. Like, I'm scared for my life this year. And I mean social/home life. These kids are crazy!

I spent the better part of the day worrying about Harry, we shall call him, as he was wandering around my room getting into to EVERYTHING. He is autistic so I thought I'd let him do what he needed to do for a while, but after a while when (after like 3 hours) I asked him to join the group he would yell "ABSOLUTELY NOT! THIS DUCK IS DONE!". I mean I don't even know how to answer such a response. I had to try not the laugh the first couple of times but then it got old... The really funny part is when Harry screams "No", the rest of the kids look at me with anticipation like "OMG what is she gonna do about him". They look at him then me-back and forth. all day. I think right now the score is Harry: 10 Mrs. Pate: 0. (doesn't Mrs. Pate look funny?!)

The late afternoon was not as funny. We all started to smell something  a lot like death. No one was owning up to any "accidents" of any sort. Regretfully, I thought it was Harry. It wasn't. Turns out the kid who had been making the biggest fuss over the poo smell had a big poo in his pants. There's no telling how long it had been in there. My nose had become numb, but the coaches were able to sniff out the culprit.

Let's hope round two goes better.