because i taught elementary school for a few years, i am sadly aware of the fact that my students may not remember a lot about the time that they spent with me (then again, who could forget spending every day in my presence?). and lest that bring up any ressentiment (and yes, i know you think that is spelled “resentment” wrong, but i didn’t. it is a whole new word and go and listen to the pronounciation of it and try to use it in a conversation today because nothing is better than busting out a little french word every now and then). but i do have a few moments of clarity from my elementary years that have made me a better teacher and a better mother and at the core a better person. and this story from kindergarten involves a teacher who knew the heart of her student and it involves a lot of urine...
i have you hooked with the urine thing, don’t i? i know how to work the crowd...
side note... my mom and dad built a new house and moved into it exactly two years ago, and guess you bought the house that they moved out of that was 3 houses away from the new one.... my kindergarten teacher’s daughter! that story will be even more interesting after tomorrow’s entry... so stay tuned...
again, demonstrating that i know how to work the crowd.
so, back to lea in her kindergarten days. picture a shy, quiet little 5 year old lea. YES, you read that right. i was shy and quiet. something came upon me years later and i became much less shy and downright noisy. but for the purposes of this event, picture me as shy and quiet and i did not like to make a scene and i DID NOT break rules.
but, desperate times call for desperate measures...
and i was in my kindergarten class and i missed my mommy. i wanted to go home. and so i thought through this idea of wanting to go home in my house and i settled on the perfect solution. some other little girl had wet her pants the day before and her mommy had come to fetch her from school.
do you see where this is going?
so i decided to wet my pants just a little bit JUST like the girl in my class and ergo my mommy would appear and i would be home free (and a bit wet), but home free indeed.
so i sat on my little kindergarten chair and i tried to wet my pants, and i tried, and i tried. it is hard to break a rule and do something that you know is wrong when all of your ENTIRE LIFE (albeit it had only been 5 years) you have been a rule follower. and finally i had a breakthrough and even though i was trying to only wet my pants a little bit, i (how can i put this nicely?) succeeded with much gusto and even more liquid than i had envisioned in my mind.
isn’t that what happens whenever we try to do something just a little bit wrong? we end up with a mess all over ourselves AND the chair AND the floor. the girl the day before just had a wet spot on her dress’s back. i had a lake under my seat. and now i had the attention of the whole class and the teacher.
she gingerly stepped over the puddle and rescued me from the flood. she took me to the restroom and went to call my mom. i remember leaving the room while ALL the other students’ eyes were fixed on me, i remember how that puddle looked on the floor, i remember how WET my dress was, i remember the smell of urine, i was humiliated and silent. i remember feeling so small in that restroom and so wrong.
i was still silent when the teacher came back and she started talking about how this happens to everyone and it was okay. i didn’t cry, i just whispered that it wasn’t an accident, that i had meant to do it. she started to get mad and then paused a moment and softened up and said something about that not seeming like me (see, i told you i was a rule follower). i told her that i did it because i wanted my mom to take me home for the day.
i remember her smiling as the reality of it hit her and her saying very sweetly that i had gotten what i wanted and then she asked, “was it worth it?”....
and thinking about how uncomfortable i was, i said “no”. and she said, “remember that.” and i did.
but my mom came anyway and i went home with her. and i don’t think that my teacher ever told my mom that i had done it on purpose OR my mom never brought it up with me.
i never had another bladder control incident at school after that one, purposeful or unintentionally. i wish i could say that i never broke another rule or commandment in order to obtain something that i “thought” that i wanted. but it usually turned out in the same way. obtaining the sought for “prize” whilst standing in a pool of my own regretfulness (which to this day smells a lot like urine in my mind).
i think about my teacher’s sweet and kind response to me, she wasn’t angry, she just let the consequences play themselves out. i think about how she could have made me stay, how she could have humiliated me further, but she didn’t. she let me go home with my mom and she knew that would be the best lesson for me at that time. i hope i was as good of a teacher as she was, i hope i am doing that same kind of job with my kids.
and i hope that i never sit in a pool of my own urine (literally or figuratively) again. that is miserable stuff, people... even if you get to go home with your mom afterwards...
don’t i look all sweet...
and quiet and shy and like a little girl who would NEVER do anything bad in her life? well, looks can be deceiving...
by the way, check out my brother’s sock and shoe combo and note that my sister and i have on the SAME style shoes that my youngest daughter and her youngest daughter still wear today....