James and the Giant Tooth~

On Thursday, James had me at my wits' end. Knowing how short my wits are lately, he alone has the capability of finding them, nudging them, and stomping on them with his high-top black Converse tennis shoes. (The ones he takes off. In class.)

James joined my class last month. He has never been in school before and lacks all the social graces and academic finesse one would expect of a kindergartener at this time of year.

James has the patience of a gnat and the processing skills of .... let's see. I need a good analogy here. Suffice to say that James does not readily process ANYTHING YOU SAY to him in a timely fashion. Unless the response you give him involves dropping everything to replace a lost shoe, tie an errant lace, or be at his beck and call, he simply doesn't "hear" it.

James has cerebral palsy on his right side. Instead of fitting him with a shoe that will properly support his turned in foot, his mother laces up a pair of black
Converse high tops, which James promptly messes with and removes several times a day. Replacing this shoe involves unlacing the whole damn thing and shoving his poor twisted foot deep into the bowels of it, and praying that your efforts will result in the shoe remaining ON for the rest of the day.

When the shoe comes off or, in most cases, is removed by James, he will caterwaul and carry on in a fashion designed to send even the most patient of saints towards
the fava beans and nice chianti.

"TEACHER! TEACHER! TEACHER! FIX MY SHOE! MY SHOE CAME OFF!MY SHOE CAME OFF! TEACHER FIX MY SHOE! MY SHOE!"

This is repeated until the other children have covered their ears and dived under tables for safety. This, I presume, is the result of my careful Earthquake training.
When they add "stop, drop, and roll," I will be officially ready for retirement.

You can reassure James that you will "get to this shoe" as soon as you are damned good and ready, but all he processes is the word "shoe," coupled with a tone of voice that communicates to him that you are not ABOUT to stop what you are doing to spend 5 solid minutes replacing a shoe THAT HE TOOK OFF IN THE FIRST PLACE.

So, on Monday, James lost his first tooth. It was quite the experience for him. It was emotional, full of blood, and demands that I call an ambulance. I put the tooth into a little tooth necklace and convinced him to put the whole thing into his backpack for safekeeping.

On Thursday, James lost another tooth. I repeated the procedure with the tooth necklace but this time, James insisted on keeping it around his neck.

After many admonitions to leave his tooth alone,and NOT OPEN THE LITTLE TOOTH CONTAINER I CAREFULLY TAPED SHUT AND PUT AROUND HIS NECK WITH A CAREFUL LITTLE SQUARE KNOT, James interruped a beautiful rendering of "The Whales," by Cynthia Rylant.

Y'all KNOW how I feel about Cynthia Rylant. The kids were DEAD QUIET for once and actually enthralled by this book.It was - it was - dare I say it? A teaching MOMENT! They were in the palm of my hand and Rylant's carefully chosen words, complete with "feathers in a sky...." and "the rose being lost on them."

And what does James the now-front-toothless wonder do? HE starts SCREAMING AT ME.

"TEACHER! I can't find my tooth!"

And does he say it once and let it go so we can try to solve the problem!? NO! He begins that James-Caterwaul, repetively screaming it while I lower the book and say
something profound about James and his MOST OUTSTANDING LISTENING SKILLS.

Moment? Rylant Moment? HUH? (nnnnyeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr! pffft!)

Did we find the lost tooth? Yes - it was next to the block pile. Everybody in class was on their hands and knees, searching for the lost tooth. You can imagine how quiet and peaceful it was in kindergarten right then. They found paper clips, some loose staples, and an old sticker, too.

Did James use the tooth, safely encased back into his tooth necklace, as a castanet during the rest of the reading? Why, YES, he did! (How did you know?)

And what did I find after the kids left that day?

1. An open plastic tooth container, empty of tooth.

2. A lime green plastic strand of filament, used to fasten
tooth containers into necklaces and tied around little...
NECKS. (grit teeth when you say that word. NECKS.)

3. A bit o' tape, affixed to outside of James's cubby.

4. The tail end of one of my wits.

;-)K