Kid 1: “When I’m 80-years-old —”
Kid 2: “You’ll be a great grandma!”
Kid 3: “No, you’ll be like Margaret!”
I don’t know if it’s just because it’s day three, but today was brutal. Maybe it’s because I’m so incredibly old – although, if I look like this at age 80, I won’t be disappointed, but I digress – or maybe my body is already run down by the rampant onslaught of boisterous children. Perhaps it’s because the school year is almost over, or maybe it’s because lunch starts at 10:45, and that post-lunch sleepiness hits when there are still 4.5 hours left of the day. One student looked at me today (at only 10:00) and said, “I need a nap.” Me too, kiddo, me too.
Even with my sleepy daze, I walked into the classroom thrilled to share a funny coincidence (that’s a fancy pants word as the kids would say) that occurred this week. On Monday, while instructing them to write about a fun time with a friend, Mrs. Cohen gave the students an example regarding a time she went to a Durham Bulls game and caught a foul ball, only to have it taken from her bag by her brother-in-law. By sheer luck, at Wednesday night’s Bulls game, I ended up with a foul ball. Their faces lit up like a Christmas tree when I passed the ball around to them and faced constant questions like “why is it so hard?” and “how’d you catch it with your cast?”
Lunchtime brought me more questions and another lesson for this week. To a kindergartener, age is really just a number. I could be 17, 26, 80, or 152, and it wouldn’t matter. To them, I’m just old. Lunch is where all of this age discussion started. They had me guessing their ages and took turns guessing mine, resulting in some… interesting answers. One student started talking about their Chinese zodiac animal, and suddenly (another fancy pants word), I was the expert because they discovered I study the language.
It was today, specifically, that I wished that these curious creatures we call children would never lose that spark of wonder or urge to be inquisitive as they become old like me. These bright-eyed and brilliant kids keep me on my toes, and I feel so honored to be that old wise one they look up to.
