Alive and kicking.... well really it's more of a twitching

Eighteen. Eighteen is the number of eager, small, shy warm bodies that I have in my class at this time. Eighteen six year olds that were very deceiving while they looked around at all the new things surrounding them, took in as much as their little brains could handle after 11 weeks of summer vacation, and sat quietly following directions. All I could think was that I had hit the jackpot and training the troops would be a breeze. It took all of one hour for them to come out of their shells, wreck my beautiful illusion, and the quietness become a buzz. Unfortunately, that buzz quickly turned into more of a loud humming noise. Oh well, there's always next year.

I always wonder if I'm the only teacher that has such talkative students and feel much better at the end of the day when I run into my teammates who are wide-eyed and frantic, looking around and asking anyone within earshot if their kids stopped talking for even one minute today or if they had inherited the only class in the school that thought talking was a subject of it's own. Thank God I'm not alone.

Of course it did dawn on me that while last year I was boy heavy (13 boys 8 girls) this year I am quite the opposite and we are at 12 girls and 6 boys. I think I'm looking at some cat fights down the road and a rather chatty room of *social butterflies*. None-the-less we did manage to make it through the morning with only a few tears during goodbyes (and those were mainly from the parents) and even through recess with only minor infractions. I believe that I have two that will be a huge challenge this year, along with that whole aide thing which I won't even mention anymore about right now. Lunch went much smoother than I feared and I don't think I had a single kid eating their mashed potatoes with their hands (although a third grader across the table from us apparently feels that is his preferred way of dining... ugh). Things were running nicely until the end of the day when about half of my kids decided they were tired and ready to go home. Sad thing is, I was tired and ready to go home too so I really couldn't blame them.

So while I'm still alive and kicking, or at least alive and twitching anyway, we'll just have to see how the rest of the week goes! Why oh why couldn't we have started on a Wednesday! *wink*