Children are amazing.  Over the past week, however, I've found that I've been surprised in more ways than usual by the tiny humans.

Story #1 
It started last Sunday.  I was suffering from a horrible cold and had just run to Walgreens to pick up some cold medicine which they wouldn't let me have because the pharmacy was closed
(gotta love when they hold cold medicine hostage) and before I could get to another location with a 24 hour pharmacy, I was confronted in the parking lot by some crazed looking woman trying to get me to give her a ride.

So when I showed up to babysit, I was frazzled, exhausted, and feeling gross.  The little girl I was watching, offered me some sage advice, telling me I had to blow my nose, not sniffle, because if you sniffle, you can get the flu.

The real kicker though, was when she was getting ready for bed.  At this point I could barely breathe (the cold medicine I went through so much trouble to get was NOT helping).  After we read a book (Pinkalicious - LOVE IT!) she went to turn out her light and turn on her music.  She turned the light off and then back on again.  Then she went over to her toy chest and started rooting through stuff, clearly on a mission.  I thought she was trying to find a night light or a stuffed animal.  But then she walked over to me and...

 handed me a tissue.

Story #2
I am a dance instructor, I teach primarily children, ages 2-6.  This week I read the book Giraffe's Can't Dance to one of my classes (we follow the story with dancing out different things that happen in the book).  This is a story about jungle animals who love to dance and how they make fun of Gerald the giraffe because he doesn't know how.  My class was appalled and with very little prompting had a conversation about how mean the other animals were and how, if they knew Gerald the giraffe, they would not make fun of him - they would be his friend and help him learn how to dance.

I am proud to know these little ones.

Story # 2.5
This one is just a quick quote - one of the girls in the story time dance class was asked by her mom if she wanted to take the class again.  I've only had this student for 3 weeks but it's already time to sign up for the next session.  In response to her mom's question she said:

"I want to take this class every Monday until I die".

Story #3
I've been subbing a lot of classes for another teacher who's been away doing a teaching residency out of the country.  I've been having a great time with her students, and even though  some of these kids have had her as a teacher for a long time, I think I won most of them over and they didn't mind having a substitute for a couple weeks.

But as we talked about how their regular teacher would be back next week and I thanked them for letting me teach their classes and for being such good students.  As we were doing our end of class ritual (telling our favorite part and getting stamps as a reward) I could see the emotional struggle some of the kids were going through.

One of the girls started to tell me that she wished I could keep teaching their class but that she also missed her regular teacher.  She wanted to be loyal and was unsure if she was allowed to like both of us.  She settled on wishing that I could teach with her other instructor - that we could be a team.


I often feel like I should carry a notebook around and preserve these moments.  Some stories are easy to remember or to tell.  But others are so fleeting and happen in the middle of such chaos that while they are stunning in the moment, they also get lost in it.  Plus then I'd spend all my time recording events instead of experiencing them.  And children move at warp speed - so it's better not to look away - or I will definitely miss something.