wednesday

They came in on Wednesday and had these sweaters on. I was in a sleeveless dress and couldn’t imagine with all the running around they do that they were actually still cold so when they came into class I told them to put their sweaters and jackets into their cubbies. One girl started to take her jacket off but most of them just sat and looked at me. So I went over to one of them and started to pull off his sweater. Evidently his mouth was open as I pulled it over his head and it somehow got caught on his loose tooth. And the screams commenced. I had no idea what had happened but took him outside and saw the blood that started coming so we rinsed out his mouth and waited for him to calm down (apologizing the whole time—can’t believe I really caused blood to flow). He didn’t talk for about 45 minutes after that but then came around and all was forgiven. During break he came in screaming again—he’d hit his head on a scooter and blamed another girl for it. came in and sat on my lap until he had screamed it all out. Then looked at me and said “you can never do that again.” I agreed and said, “yes, but you should also listen to your teacher and do what she says.” He thought about it and repeated his earlier statement so I did the same. He lost the tooth that afternoon—no tears.