Low fuel light's been on for days*...

Oh dear.  This past week has just been an absolute whirlwind.  I run, run, run, then come home and I'm lucky to get my pajamas on before I collapse.  I'm sure we're all in that same boat.  And it's sprung a leak.  And we are about to drown.  SOS!  Here are a few highlights from the past few days:

-I now have 30 kindergartners.  Thirty.  How is it that my first year I only had 22, now just two years later we are all sitting at about 30?  Why are there so many children?  But more importantly, what am I supposed to do with them?  Do you think maybe I can say, "Be still!" and tame them with the magic trick of staring into their eyes without blinking once?  And maybe they will be frightened and make me queen of the wild things and then the wild rumpus fun learning can start?  Because I definitely feel like I'm where the wild things are right about now.  Hopefully it will be better after Christmas.

-I also have a few farm animals in my first grade class.  I'm not exactly sure how this happened, but the other day I asked a student a question and he oinked at me.  Oinked.  Like a pig.  At first I thought maybe he was calling me fat, but after talking to the 90somethingpound skinny teacher next door, she confirmed that he oinked at her too.  Please explain.  In that same thirty minute time span, I looked up and a different student had his shirt down over his shoulder and was licking his shoulder.  Like a cat.  At that point I just wanted to scream, "Pinocchio, you're a REAL BOY!"  Why are we oinking and licking ourselves?  WHY?  We are people, not animals. 

-Our copy machine has been broken for a week.  I might be up all night hand writing worksheets for 90 students because my dry erase markers are starting to run out and I can only stand on my head to entertain them for so long.  Do any of you have your own copier or maybe you went in with several teachers and bought one?  Make recommendations if you have a good one because I'm ready to buy one so that my life doesn't have to stop when the copier does.

-Today I looked out the hall just in time to see one of my students run, drop down to his knees, and slide half way down the hall.  I sent him back to the reading teacher's room and called her to explain what had happened.  After school she told me that he walked back in and she asked him why he was back.  At that point, the phone started ringing.  He pointed to the phone, hung his head and quietly said, "That's Ms. Preppy."  Oh my.  My, my, my.  They know they're doing the wrong thing.  They know it.  But they do it anyway.  WHY??

-There's also some awful stomach bug flying around school.  I had two run out puking before 8am today.  That's never a good sign.  I'm thinking about getting them all an early Christmas gift--a pail attached to a string so they all have a little bucket right there.  Fashionable and functional.  Thoughts? 

-One of my second grade friends ran up to me at recess the other day and said, "Soandso called me a b-i-s-h."  A bish?  Really?  By second grade we should be able to spell that correctly, right?  I told the reading teacher that she might want to work on that a little bit.  But at least it gave us a new catch phrase: she's such a fish-with-a-"b".    Feel free to use that one.

Alex, I'll take "Reasons Teachers Drink" for $500...

* Bonus points to anyone who doesn't have to consult Google to figure out where my post title came from.  Hopefully I'll have a friend or two on here who are cool enough to know.