For the last couple of weeks, I have been working with kindergarteners. All those adorable faces, all those grubby little fingers in little snotty noses. All those little hands, touching everything, and then touching me. I love every minute of it, brand new voices, tears and smiles, sweet, spontaneous hugs.
But children + the first weeks of school = germs. (See, I’m mathing!)
Last weekend, it hit me. The first cold of the year, and it hit me hard. Sinus headache, scratchy throat, cough, and the stuffiest/runniest nose ever. I wasn’t the first to go down, and turns out, I’m not the last. Plenty of my peers are feeling the first tickle of the plague as we head into the three-day weekend. Fortunately for me, I’m beginning to emerge. Last Monday, though, I was forced into quarantine, after not being able to sleep all night for fear of drowning in a pool of mucus. Nothing more disheartening than watching one of your precious PTO days disappear before you even hit September.
Yesterday, at our staff meeting, leadership passed out packets of Emergen-C. They get it: the struggle is real.
Still, it’s worth it. I get the wonderful privilege of seeing these tiny persons, some barely five years old, learn and grow and emerge into big kids. My original kindergarten class, from my first year at ROMO, are fourth graders now. (My very first kinders, from another school in another state, can legally drink now.) The fourth graders are big, rough and tumble, beautiful brilliant beings. I love them, and still see them as they were then, little precious gifts, with grubby fingers in snotty little noses.
We’ll pass around the Kleenex and Clorox wipes, and forge forward, as we always do, with grit and persistence, to get better every day.
Writer * Educator * Artist * Adventurer 