red means stop

Where I work, the walls are all different colors. Somehow it is supposed to stimulate the kids, but I think if you are over the age of 6 the bright colors just hurt your eyes.

Anyway, there is one wall that is bright red. I have nicknamed it "the crusher", because for some reason kids seem to injur themselves on it daily. You would think seeing a giant red wall would encourage them to stop, but instead it just screams "run into meeeee".

Today, I witnessed a kid get completely taken out by "the crusher". I was teaching my class when one of my kids, Marco, takes off runing. He is looking straight ahead, so I figured he would see the gigantic red wall in front of him. Instead he runs full speed face first into the wall. He immediately falls to the ground as his lip swells up like a baloon.

I would feel bad for the kid, but who doesn't see a bright red 30 foot wall? I am ashamed to say this is not the first time I have seen a kid get taken out by an inanimate object at work, so I can only assume this will not be "the crusher's" last victim.

If you noticed I haven't posted anything in a while, its because I had four blissful, wonderful, fantastic days off work. Four days where I didn't have to talk to anyone under the age of 10.

Yeah I came down from that cloud REAL fast when I went back today.

Every week at work we have themes. We claim they are to motivate the kids, but I personally think the kids don't really give a flying crap. Nonetheless this week is "crazy hair week", so I sported my side ponytail...you know...keeping it real.

Anyway, where I work we finish each class with a goodbye song (I would elaborate, but basically the lyrics make you wish you did not have the ability to hear). Today, one of my kids Nicholas decides to run out of the class before the song because he is too special to sit still for 5 seconds.

As I leave the class I see him crying in the corner. When I ask whats wrong, he looks up with tears in his eyes and yells "YOU SANG THE GOODBYE SONG WITHOOOUUUUTTT MEEEEE". I refrained from shouting "no, you were just too retarded to get it together and sit still", and instead, headed back into the gym to give him a private goodbye song. I was feeling like I did the right thing, until he told me my hair looked "stupid". Being the mature adult that I am, I just said "your face looks stupid".

Needless to say, Nicholas exited the gym just as tearful as he entered, (which is fine because nobody knows I called a 3 year old's face stupid and then felt good about it).

I'm going straight to hell aren't I?

thank god its a holiday weekend.

In my parent-child class wednesdays, I have a 2 year old named Ethan. Ethan is usually somewhat normal. I mean all kids pull the occasional tard maneuver, but this kid is usually pretty legit.

Today Ethan came inside the gym, immediately sat in a corner, and stared at the wall. Literally did not move. I tried calling him over, attempted to lure him with bribes, even picked him up and moved him across the room....to no avail. He just kept going back to the corner, sitting down and staring at the wall.

For 45 minutes.

When I asked his mom what was up, she said she had no clue, and that before class everything had gone as usual. I thought maybe he saw a spider or something, but further investigation of the wall yeilded no answers...

Finally at the end of class, Ethan gets up, and without a word walks out of the gym.

I was hoping I could to get through one day without any "special" moments, but I am beginning to think its a pipe dream.

I never did figure out why Ethan liked the corner so much.

my life has become icky

Since I have started working with kids, I have been constantly sick. I don't know if it is that grimy film kids always seem to have on their hands, or my weak immune system. But now that I think about it, it's probably just a horrible combination of the two.

Anyway, lately my body has produced an astonishing amount of flegm which causes me to blow my nose about every 10 minutes. Not suprising, I have no health insurance at this gem of a workplace, so I have allowed this flegm to become a thick greenish-gray chunky texture.

Which brings me to one of my kids, Cole. Cole is the kind of kid who instead of just doing his gymnastics, decides to search endlessly for anything disgusting on the gym floor he can show you. This includes but is definitely not limeted to such wonderful items as; used band-aids, hairballs, and (my personal favorite) the occasional unidentifiable mystery item. He always runs up with a look of pure joy on his face and yells "LOOK" as loud as possible. I secretly think he does it just to see if I will puke.

So today, I am blowing my nose, when Cole says "Miss Teacher, what are you doing"? Just to make life interesting, I grabbed the tissue and with a similar look of joy shouted "LOOK", showing him the globby contents.

Needless to say I don't think Cole will be searching for anything to show me for a while.

did I mention I graduated college cum laude?

If you are wondering why I am posting about work on a Sunday...it is because my life sucks so much that I get to work Saturdays AND Sundays! whoooopeeee

Today, if you can believe it, I got the pleasure of cleaning up puke AGAIN! Oh yes...a kid puked all over himself, a table, and a plate.

As I wiped up the sickening mess, I realized this brings the puke tally up to 4! Who said graduating college with honors couldn't get you anywhere?

I hope you can all sleep better at night knowing that your life could not suck any harder than mine.

This is why today BLEW

On Saturdays I usually teach 2 gymnastics classes, take a lunch break, then do 2 birthday parties. Today, my boss thought it would be fun (you know since thursday I came in ON MY DAY OFF to cover for her), if I would teach my 2 classes, then teach her 2 classes, then do a birthday party all back to back. You know, because I have superhuman strength when I don't eat, go to the bathroom, or get a drink of water for 7 straight hours while simultaneously demonstrating athletic moves.

Suprisingly, everything is going fine by my 4th class. That is, until a 4 year old child (who we shall call "SATAN" only to protect his identity...sort of), decided to be incapable of listening. So Satan is up on the high bar and I tell him that he is going to flip over the bar. The little genius takes it upon himself to immediately ignore me, jump down instead, and land on top of me with a swift powerful kick directly to my babymaker.

I let out a cry of pain similar to a dying cat...and took what little strength I had left to restrain myself from striking a child.

Then I came home and immediately applied for several office jobs where there are no children within a 100 foot radius.

NEATO!

if you're happy and you know it...clean up your kids puke!

Tuesday started off like any other day. You know...I go in...teach some tards a handstand. Then my parent child class rolls around. These kids are 19 months to 2 1/2, (which means my life sucks). This particular tuesday I got the honor of being puked on! I have to hand it to the little guy for an impressive display. He managed to puke RIGHT in the middle of the whole room...could not have been more centrally located...very impressive.

You know, you would think the parent of the child would take him home after he puked on himself and the teacher...but nope, he stayed for more! To make it better, all the other dumbass kids decide to run around the puke while im cleaning it up...and their oh so wonderful parents don't try to get them away from it because god is smiting me.

the best part...the song of the week was "if you're happy and you know it". I was suuuuure happy!!

You know, its funny when I think about it for a minute, but then I realize that I got puked on and I stop laughing.