Saturday, March 5, 2011

Believe it or not

I regret to inform you that this week was one of the worst on record! Not necessarily because of the kids, there was just some professional politics going on that were disgusting and saddening. I obviously can't get into it but let me just say it kills me when good, hard-working people are scorned, unappreciated and generally treated badly. However...
The upside of my job is that even when it's a bad week, it's really not that bad of a week! So many wonderful things happened, as usual. My sweet little boy with the angel voice was sick this week and I could oddly understand him SO much better! It was so cute to hear his soft voice all raspy. :-) And while I'm on the subject of communication, some preeeetty funny things happened this week relating to that subject.
The students in my class get a vocabulary word each day. They have to write the word, definition and create a sentence. We started offering $2 classroom money to any student who would stand up, say the word, the definition 5 times without looking at it, and share their sentence. One student in my class who has speech problems volunteered for this. The word was negotiate. Definition: discuss so as to agree on. So he stood up, said the word and then continued, "Negotiate- discuss so at to greed on, discuss so at to greed on, disscuss so at to greed on, discuss so at to greed on, disscuss so at to greed on." I'm not sure if this translates as humorously in type but it was hilarious. He has a cute little accent too. His sentence was also a crack-up, "I negotiate to get my own grades up my parents get my xbox take away for one month." We asked him to elaborate and he just said, "I negotiate my own grades up." And an aide said, "You don't negotiate your grades! You EARN them!" At this point he looked nervous and sat down. :-(
Also, a little triumph happened this week with another student who had speech problems. I have been working with him for a year and a half and always struggled to understand what he was saying. But recently he has been speaking sooo clearly! I hardly even have to ask him to repeat himself. He is stretching out his words, pronouncing each syllable and annunciating much better. I am so proud! :..-( We actually had a long discussion about him becoming a police officer and how he would arrest people for "saying bad words", "sagging their pants" and "writing on walls". I tried to get him to say the miranda rights but I think that was asking too much...
Let me just end on this note. My baby girl who we will call "JJ" for privacy reasons did the cutest thing this week. I don't think I've mentioned her yet on my blog which is shocking because, well, she's kind of one of my favorite (but on the record I really don't have any ;-). So JJ is a teeny, tiny little girl with a walker she uses most of the time. She is 12 yrs old but appears to be around 4 or 5. She has a high squeaky voice and whenever I hear her out in the hall I think a little baby has come to visit our school! She's actually in the severe handicapped class but whenever I get the chance I visit her across the hall, out at the lunch tables, on the field in P.E. or in the O.T. (play) room. She is sooooo cute! Most of the time I'm not sure she is saying anything that exists in any known language but sometimes I can decipher things like "sit", "watch" and one particularly heart-warming time, "I-LOVE-YOOOOU!" She is very sweet, loving and full of energy. She gives me a big, strong hug when I see her and sometimes clings onto me with her legs too like a baby or little monkey. The thing is, she's so tiny and frail, I don't understand how she gives such strong hugs! On the other hand, JJ can sometimes be very stubborn, uncooperative and cranky.
Anyway now that you have her background I will tell you what happened. I saw JJ in P.E. and sat next to her on the steps. She babbled for a bit, then took my hand and placed something in it. I looked. It was a booger from her nose. I stared at it for a second and then said, "Yuck, JJ! I appreciate the thought but I don't want your boogers!" So I don't know if she was thinking like a cat who brings you a dead mouse or lizard as a present that she was giving me a gift or, if she just thought she could use my hand as a kleenex. Oh well, I still love her. :-)
If you're still reading by this point I thank you. I know this post was exceptionally long-winded but I hope you enjoyed reading it almost as much as I enjoyed living it!

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