things i will (not) miss

In 18 days (18!), school will be over for the year and as of today, it will officially be over for me for the foreseeable future. My hands were kind of sweaty as I filled out the official paperwork and submitted my letter of resignation. A little voice in the back of my head kept asking if I was doing the right thing. It's a great thing that my heart and the rest of my brain was shouting, "Heck Ya!"

As much as I'm looking forward to my time at home, there will be things that I will miss. This week is Teacher Appreciation Week and one of the clubs on our campus had each student write a nice message about their teacher and presented us with them today. Most kids wrote something along the lines of You are a great teacher and You are nice. A few of my favorites included the kids who thanked me for rarely yelling and for teaching them about explorers. A couple of them even touched my heart. One girl told one of her favorite parts of the year were the times I told stories about Luke and Reagan. Little does she know that those stories are some of my favorite parts too. One little boy even wrote that he likes the way I dress. This one really shocked me mostly because this particular kiddo is definitely not one to notice things like that typically and seems like he's in his own personal Star Wars drama the vast majority of our school day.

I'll also miss the stories that I'll be able to pass on to my family and friends. Kids say the darndest things is a saying that I never fully understood until I became a teacher. I actually had to ask my class yesterday, "Whose pants are these? They have to belong to someone." Why is it even possible for that to be an issue? Another gem happened last week. We had just started our spelling test and after saying the first word, one boy asked me what he should do with it. Um...write it? Spell it? Hell-o! Spelling test buddy! He wanted to know if he was supposed to draw a picture instead of spelling it. What? You really can't make this stuff up.

I love how sweet my kids are, but there are certain parts of teaching that I won't miss. Recess duty is the first thing that comes to mind. I am constantly amazed at what third graders are doing. One of my students ran up and kicked another kid hard in the ankle because he was mad at the status of the soccer game they were playing. Another kid from another class fully threatened another one's life. And we have had to have multiple discussions concerning appropriate character. From making fun of other students to talking about and making inappropriate sexual comments and gestures, we've run the gamut of weird situations this year.

Another thing that I won't miss: vomit. I should be more specific; I won't miss other people's kids' vomit. I know that I'll never escape Luke or Reagan's, but I won't have to deal with kids who, like yesterday, walk up to me (not the trash can) as puke is oozing through their fingers with disgusting force. Poor guy proceeded to continue to puke (in the garbage can now) all the way through the school on his way to the nurse. Even worse is when a different boy starts to shout to the class, "Hey look! You can see the chunks of apple that he had for lunch! And its all over the carpet and it dripped down the hall!" I have never called the front office in such a panic before and was never so close to losing my cool in front of my students.

In all, I will miss a lot about teaching. I will miss the sweetness and loving nature of most of my kids. I'll miss not being there to see them get older and taller. But you know what? I'll get to experience more of that with my own babies: Luke and Reagan. And I wouldn't miss that for anything.