Happppy Anniversary!

Today marks my first five months as a preschool teacher! I feel so lucky to be a part of a center with a great child-centered mission where people actually like their jobs and the kids are actually happy to be at school. Although some days I feel like I'm going to scream if I hear my name one more time ("Miss Catherine? Miss Catherine? Miss Catherine? (begins to poke my arm) Miss Catherine? Miss Catherine? (begins to pull at my hand) Miss Catherine?"...See? It's exhausting just typing it out, much less listening to it), most of the time it's easy peasy. Nice and easy. Light and breezy. Ha-huh.

A lot of my day is spent facilitating conflict management, but the rest of the time I'm simply happy to just be with them. Talk to them. And this is where the rest of my post comes in - I just want to share some of the things I get to hear at work:

(In preparation for going to a gymnastics field trip) "Miss Catherine? You will have so much fun you will love it and you will smile and tears will come to your eyes." - N*, 4/M

(On St. Patty's Day) "Mischievous means sneaky and I don't like leprechauns because they're sneaky." - I*, 4/F

N - "I'm going to drink 10,000 cups of juice!"
Me - "If you drank 10,000 cups of juice you would explode!"
N - "No, if you drink too much juice God will pop you in your eye."
Me - "Who?"
N - "GOD!"
C - "No He won't because God made the whole world, (looks at me) right?"
Me - "Right."
C - "God made two people that made the rest of the people That would take them a really long time."
Me - "hahahaha. You're right."

(Talking about his upcoming birthday...in September) "I'm going to have lots of pinatas and lots of candy at my house and have a big cake and I'm going to invite everyone in the whole world to my party. I'm going to use a bat and hit the pinata (pronounced pe-yawn-a) really hard and all of the candy will fall out and then I'll have a bag o' candy."
Me - "And you'll share it with your sister?"
"No." - B*, 4/M

Finally, we got our kiddos to answer questionnaires as part of their Mother's Day gifts. Here are some of my favorite responses:

How tall is your mommy?
- taller than a refrigerator - 42 inches - like 1,000 - I haven't asked her

How old is your mommy?
- I don't know...20 - she's been a mommy for a very long time - 6 because she's already too big - 60 - she can't tell me

If your mommy were an elephant, what kind would she be?
elephant - rhino - hippo - butterfly

My mommy is as pretty as...
- What? Tell me. - an alien - a princess - a buffalo - a mermaid

Nobody is better than my mommy at...
- our home - making space pancakes...I had those this morning! - doing breakfast and all sorts of things

I love my mommy because...
- she's my family - she's so cute! - she looks really great - she's my biggest, friendliest, grown-up!

These 4-year olds are SO CUTE. Even though they're mostly before the point of being able to formulate long-term memories, I still like to think that I have some semblance of an influence on my kiddos. But what's really great about this job, is that they continue to teach ME and influence ME every day, which will last my lifetime :)

xo.