Fashion Show, Fashion Show, Fashion Show at Lunch!

My kids were funny this week. With the exception of Wednesday, when I had to eat two Poptarts after school in response to the day's events.

I recently decided to try to have a mindset change about my relationships with my kids because, after all, they are just kids. I hold them so accountable for what they do and get so angry with them, forgetting the whole time that they don't mean it. They can't mean it. They're SIX. They are not barrel rolling around on the carpet when they should be measuring tape on the floor to annoy me or to ruin my day, but because when you're six, barrel rolling on the carpet seems a hell of a lot more fun than measuring something with craft sticks. When I think of it that way, I don't really blame them.

In fact, it made me wonder why I'm not doing more of that stuff. Not necessarily the rolling and flailing parts, but the having fun parts. It's not hard to have fun teaching little kids, especially for someone like me who thinks they are endlessly funny and likes to be the center of attention. That's where the attitude shift came in. I decided to stop being such a party pooper and let myself and my kids have a little more fun. Then we could give each other a break with all this making each other angry stuff.

So this week went a lot better.

First of all, one of the girls in my reading class complimented me on my dark purple nail polish, then said,

"Miss Fiorillo, when you wear that dark nail polish it makes me think you're going moth."

"Oh really," I replied. "Going moth? What does that mean?"

"You know, when you wear black nail polish and pretend you're a vampire." I guess that's what they're calling it these days, then.

Then, during math, I explained that we were going to be practicing measurement all week so we could get really, REALLY good at it (god, doesn't that sound exciting? Doesn't it just make you want to follow the rules?) .My little hyperactive ADHD friend piped in right there with-

"Why can't we get better at flying?"

Last year, that little blurb would've puzzled me. I would not have known how to respond. Why is that even coming up when we're talking about measurement? This year, I can go with it.

"Well we'd have to know how to fly first to get better at it, wouldn't we?"

Apparently that answer was sufficient for him because he cocked his head to the side, looked up, and nodded a cursory nod before continuing to listen. It's scary that I know how to answer that kind of six-year-old question with so little effort.

Yesterday I took a little video to record them doing a fake fashion show during indoor recess. One of the girls in my homeroom thinks she's Beyonce, strutting down the hall with her  hand on her hip and her little pigtails bouncing. She taught me how to dougie on the playground, and at the age of six is already a better dancer than most people I know. Weird how you can see it come out that early. It makes me wonder what some of my friends were like at that age.

The funny part of the video wasn't the girls doing a make believe fashion show, but the kids in the foreground who decided their indoor recess activity would be to put on the puffy winter coats and have back scooting races on the floor at the back of the room. Kids are entertained by anything-- except maybe measurement.