back to reality

10 days of vacation can cause a girl to lose her grip on reality. Sleeping in, three days in the hill country, spring weather and baseball games, wonderful friends, freetime, twostepping, cowboy boots, cows, cowboys, a lot of sunshine... i was starting to float off. But, 5:25 alarm clocks and BAM! nothing like twenty-two eight year olds and the things that fly out of their mouths to bring me crashing back to earth.

Overheard on the playground today: "i missed you over spring break, ms. rob." student flips up my skirt and pulls on my bracelets, looking up at me. "i love your skirt. and your smile. and your bracelets. i love everything about you ms. rob..." and before my heart completely melted and i could utter "thank you," she quickly added:

"except for your hair. i don't understand why you would cut it like that!" well, thank you for your honesty, why don't you like it?
"too short. you had pretty curls. now it is...well....like...boring."
oh, third graders.

their enthusiasm for the small things in life was refreshing today. my "do-now" assignment for them this morning was to write 10 descriptive words on a notecard describing their break. Then, in complete sentences, tell me a high from your break, a low, and how it made you feel. (shout out to caitlin hodges who still does this at age...somewhere south of 30.)

i went to the public library of houston, it was fun i even went to the disney store. presidents, history, flowers, i love to read!

My high was that i went somewhere I've never been - Atlanta - to see my aunt!

My break was tremendously awesome. I went to the Houston rodeo with a very special guest. His name was...

My low was when we went to the movies and only saw one movie and didn't eat candy. but at least we saw a movie.

on my break i felt awesome because i had a lot of visitors at my house and we ate pizza for one week.

My favorite conversation of the day... before school, one of my highest academic kiddos came up to me. You must know that he wants to be like Taylor Swift when he grows up, despite the fact they have different genders, skin colors, and musical abilities.

"So, Ms. Robinson, I know you enjoy fishing and you've told us a story about when you've been fishing and that's cool but ... my dad made me go fishing and it was disgusting. Ew. Hahaha. You just can't believe how disgusting.

He followed up that in-person conversation with this writing: I caught a grous slimy obackscious fish. ew. You shouldve seen the crazyness, the excitement, the faint! And, the most boring part {of my break} was going to a seafood restaurant.

Apparently he does not appreciate catching or eating fish. At least he makes his opinions clear.

Thanks for reading, welcome back to school ladies and gentlemen. Hold onto your hats, because the next 26 school days (until state testing) are going to be a wild ride!