September Stampede

Staring the school year is nothing new. I've been through the drill since I was three. What is new, is being on the other end of the starting school year. And after having done the 'start of school' for almost twenty years, nothing is more stressful than the moment the floodgates open and suddenly two hundred kids, sixty teachers, and God knows how many parents are rushing down the hallway to find their classroom.

If you’ve ever seen The Lion King and watched the scene where the massive stampede of wildebeest charges down the gorge toward Simba, there’s a lot of similarities. I even had the music stuck in my head for the first few weeks of school (a lot of that came from recently watching the remake, granted). Questions run through your head as blood rushes through your body. Which kids are mine? Whose parent is this again? Is this kid supposed to be on the bus or is mom bringing them in? Am I going to be trampled?

It’s a lot to take in and a lot to be accountable for. And the very first time, it is a stampede. But then there’s the second day, and you’re a little better at it. And the third day, and then a new week, and before you know it, it’s once again ‘just part of the drill’.

The morning pickup is certainly one of the more chaotic parts of the day, but overtime, you get the hang of it. You stick to a routine and a plan, and you get through not just pickup, but circle time, walking through the halls, lunchtime, reading a story, and everything else.

The 'Plan'

“Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it! You know, I just... do things.” -Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

The basic day-to-day is relatively simple for a preschool classroom. We start with snack, do a little playing, have a short circle time, go to the playground and gym, do some sort of craft or learning activity, read a story, eat lunch, do more playing, and then go home. We put up a tiny picture version of the schedule for the kids so they know exactly when everything is (it definitely helps me too!). It sounds simple, and on paper, it is.

But there’s a lot to factor in in making sure everything goes according to plan. You have to prepare centers and crafts, and design intricate yet simple activities to keep kids engaged. You have to follow curriculum guidelines and ensure some amount of learning and productivity when all some kids want to do is play. You have to make sure every kid makes it to the bathroom at least twice a day to avoid accidents, and even then you can’t really avoid one when it happens. One kid might get up and leave circle, one might fall while running in the hall, one might cry during a fire drill, and one might run off the playground while you have your back turned. And even when you’re putting in your one hundred percent, these kids will run circles around you (which is just as cute as you think it is, and exactly like a cartoon).

There’s a lot to take in, a lot to prepare for, and a lot to do. No matter how hard you try and plan, sometimes you just have to roll with the punches. All in all though, that’s part of the fun. There is no normal day. You might take the kids on a walk in the woods picking up leaves for the first day of autumn. Another day you teach a kid how to play Connect Four or Tic-Tac-Toe. You might go around to all the classrooms and do all sorts of apple related games and activities and try all different kinds of apples (made the kids extremely sugared up for the afternoon). Even in the less ‘planned’ stuff or the more mundane duties, you can have fun and find ways to engage and entertain both the kids and yourself.

Honestly, I think one of the best parts of my job is that I’m never doing the same thing over and over and over again. I couldn’t possibly imagine sitting at one desk in a cubicle all day doing the same thing for eight hours straight. The fact that I’m always doing something different is important, and after doing it for four months I don’t think I’ve been bored once. I like to be on my feet, I like to go outside every now and then, to do crafts and run around the gym and serve lunch all within an hour. It takes a lot of balancing to get it right. And sometimes, you just don’t. You get tired. But you keep pushing through with a positive attitude, ready for a new surprise and blessing each day, and you’ll make it through days that feel like a tornado swept through the room.

Hogs and Haystacks

It’s even harder then, to balance any sort of life outside of school. After having watched the first Indiana Jones movie with my Dad and stepmom (which Dad and I had never seen before), we were eager to see the others. But almost immediately upon the suggestion that we should watch it during a weeknight, I turned and said “It’s gotta be on a weekend guys, I can’t possibly stay up that late on a school night.” Rightly so, my family immediately called me out for being an old man (which is fair, I go to bed by ten o’clock at the latest.) With daylight growing shorter and working until 5:30 three nights out of the week, it’s not always easy to find energy to do stuff you really want to.

Luckily, even though the days are packed, I still manage to find time to do fun things. I try to spend time with my family a lot, and the month was packed with me and Dad going on little adventures. And for some reason or another, we spent a lot of time going farm-hopping (kind of like barhopping, but with tractors and pigs). Now, for most people I suspect visiting a farm is something you do if you’re coming up the city and have probably only heard of cows on t.v. or seen horses in Central Park. There’s a fair amount of city folks who do exactly that: come upstate to be tourists, take lots of pictures, and delight for a brief few moments in the smell of cow manure. But for someone who’s used to getting woken up every summer morning by farm trucks constantly driving by your house, or by being hit with an immediate pungent smell of cows every time you visit your grandparents, farm life is almost kind of normal. Sure, I don’t live in a barn, but I’m sure I know two or three people who do.

I ain’t no country hick. But I’m probably ten time more comfortable in the countryside than in the city, and I relish the opportunity to go out and do things like spending a day on the farm and the many pleasures that come from it. You get to walk through fields of crops of all different kinds you could probably never grow on your own. You try organic, raw milk, almost straight from the cow (a BIG highlight for a guy like me). You watch dozens of beautiful horses, listen to hordes of chickens clucking, stroll through beautiful green meadows, and you get to pet a lot of strangers’ dogs. A lot of typical things you would expect from a trip to the farm.

But one thing, and this may sound stupid, I did not expect, was how frickin big pigs are up close. I’ve read Charlotte’s Web and I’ve seen Porky the Pig on Looney Tunes, and everything you see of pigs on t.v. leads you to believe they’re small and innocent creatures that occasionally get turned into bacon. As it turns out, in order to turn into bacon (which as sad as it may be, is kind of why most farms have pigs), a pig has to gain a lot of weight. They grow up, and they grow up big. So when we’re out trying to get the pigs to come out of their little shelters on one of the farms, I’m expecting little Gordy or something to crawl out. Instead, two massive gray beasts, each weighing three hundred pounds or more, come darting out to sneak whatever food the farmer threw at them. I of course, wanting the best picture possible, am on my knees and crouching to get the absolute best angle.

So I’m taken aback quite a bit when they start strolling my way, all smug looking with their cheeky little grins. They’re this odd mix of really ugly and really cute, so I’m not entirely sure how I feel when they start rubbing up against me like they were household cats. I come to find out that’s how the farmers interact with the pigs; getting on their level to feed them, clean them, and whatnot, and they’d kind of just assumed I was there for the same reason. They’re as friendly as dogs, and a lot of fun to pet even if they are quite literally pushing me around with their massive bodies. As the tour moves on, I come to find out these aren’t even the largest pigs; those ones grow six hundred pounds or more and the other pigs aren’t even full grown yet. Needless to say, when we came to say hi to the big kahuna hogs, I made sure to stay on my side of the fence.

A New Season

The nice thing is, even though the job is a lot of work and trying to have fun at the same time is a lot, I’ve got a nice balance going for me. In the past, I’d be worried about the start of the school year and the start of fall because it meant a lot more work and a lot less time for fun stuff. The falling of leaves meant the end of an era, not the beginning of a new one. And it’s taken me a lot of time to realize that, that’s not entirely true. Summer’s nice. Warm weather, longer days, less stress and work and more time with family and friends. But what’s also nice is that I have something to look forward to even as day light grows dimmer.

I have a job I love. The people I work with, the kids, the schedule and routine and all the crazies that come from working in a preschool. I can get tired, but never bored. I can have a hard day, but someone’s always there looking for a hug. I play games all day long, run around on the playground, build skyscrapers out of Legos and tell exciting stories of gingerbread men and witches.

I get to spend time with my family. My dad, my step-mom, my grandparents. I can randomly grab one of my cousins for lunch or show up at my grandparents for ice cream while dropping off the garbage at the dumpster. I go on walks with Dad, play basketball with my younger cousins, bike ride with the older cousins, and hang out and talk with my step-mom while making dinner (granted, she’s normally the one making it). I talk to my sister on the phone (who I really miss at college) and get dumb texts from my friends throughout the day that make me laugh.

And somehow, I still find enough me-time to myself to keep me from going insane. There’s a lot going on in life, and it kind of comes at you very quick sometimes. It’s not always what you expect, but it’s perfect in its own way. It’s all really, really, unpredictable. But often the best things in life, are right in front of you. Whether it’s being rushed by preschoolers eager to say hi and running up for hugs, cuddling behemoth pigs in the mud, making time to go to a restaurant nearby you’ve never been to with your cousin (I like to think my pulled pork sandwich came from a different pig farm), there’s a lot of special things about ordinary life. Even in a stampede of stuff going on in life, there’s always some reason to stop and look around at the beauty of the chaos surrounding you.