Chaos Theory

One more post for today. I need to catch up from the week :)

I have a three year old (freshly three, might I add) who simply isn't ready to take out work yet. She cried incessantly for the first few weeks of school. Now that she has calmed down a bit, she is my shadow. She follows me from lesson to lesson and watches other children. In seven weeks of school, she has not touched a material. She rarely talks to other children, and if they try to talk to her she usually cries. She is just not comfortable in her environment yet. On top of that, she refuses to eat anything or go to the bathroom. These things are most likely related. I've talked to her mother, and we've both agreed that she is just taking her time getting used to school. As soon as she gets home, she eats and does her business.

So, my assistant was out for the morning, which always make me run a bit ragged. While being an octopus and multi-tasking like nobody's business, I hit a bump in the road. One of the children had an accident. A poop accident. I grabbed the assistant from the room next door and asked her to watch my class while I put on the plastic gloves. I had to ask my Shadow to give me some privacy so that I could help the other child. I was worried that she might throw herself into a crying fit, but she walked away quietly. After cleaning up the accident, I looked around my classroom, which was very loud at this point. Some children were really doing their work, others were fooling around. And amidst all that noise, there was my Shadow, working on the solid cylinders with another first year student whispering to her when she got stuck. I couldn't believe it. To top it off, at lunch, she actually ate her pizza! I suppose today was simply her time.

Out of the madness, comes a bit of good :)