A busy and tiring day but not a bad one

Tweet

Today has been another exhausting day. It rained most of the day, and while I love rain when I'm dealing with kindergartners the ability to let them go outside and run off energy is pretty important and they didn't get that today so it was pure chaos. One of my little buddies I'm pretty sure is on the spectrum but his parents are in denial about it. He is so quirky and funny and I absolutely adore him. He always tells me he's soooo happy. He is such a free spirited little guy, but he is very specific about things. He likes lining up the toy dinosaurs and he knows a lot about them. indoor playtime can be rough for him who is a by the book kind of guy. One of the little girls was using the toy roads that snap together as walls for a building and he lost his little mind. He was very frusrtated over it. He kept telling us that she wasn't playing with it right and that those were roads not walls and wanted us to do something about it. He then got upset when another kid was playing with the dinosaurs wrong. He kept yelling Stegosauruses were herbivores NOT carnivores and don't eat T-rexes to one kid. He was so upset. I'm like imaginative play is tough for him. He loves asking me random questions like where does chocolate come from. It's so funny how incredibly intelligent he is even though half of the time he lives in his own world. It baffles me that his parents can't tell he's most likely on the spectrum. He is one of my favorites despite us having to constantly get onto him about things, but it's not him trying to be defiant he just likes things a certain way or he is in his head. I love his little quirks that make him so unique. Today was just difficult for him because his schedule was off and he doesn't fully understand imaginative play like some of his peers. He is the sweetest little guy. Part of me felt bad for him while the other part of me thought it was kind of funny how serious he was about how other kids were playing. We have a little girl who is so weird about the bathroom and how she only wants to use a certain stall. Today that stall was dirty and she wanted me to clean it for her. I told her there were three other stalls she was going to have to choose one of those because it wasn't my job to clean the stall. First of all I didn't have the stuff to clean it, second of all I'm not paid enough to clean it. The custiodans make far more than I do so I'm not about to do their job on top of mine. I am already underpaid and underappreciated, I'm not adding more work to my list of stuff to do. She eventually caved and went into a different stall. I was holding my ground on that one, she could either pee her pants or use a different stall. I don't understand her hatred of the other stalls but she's going to have to figure it out before the end of the year because I'm not going to consistently wait for her to use the bathroom when there are several other stalls open. I have already talked to the teacher about it but I don't know if they'll do anything or if they even can do anything about it. After work my son and I did church dinner. We have formed friendships with people that go to the dinners and are always happy to see them. They almost always prefer talking to my son over me and I'm ok with that. He is more outgoing than I am. My son once again told me how happy he was and that always makes me smile. He loves going there and talking to people and eating the food and listening to music and answering trivia questions they do before dinner (it used to be after dinner but they switched it around this year). The past couple of days my son and I have been playing Mario Kart together and he has been really enjoying that and I've been enjoying the quality time with my son. He and I are both introverts most of the time and enjoy alone time but we also enjoy spending time together. We just get exhausted by all of the socialization from the day. I socialize a lot for an introvert and that is why I'm so exhausted at the end of the day. The book fair is at our school this week so paras have been extra tired from taking kids down and helping them shop. Most of us have been late to break because of it. I already took our kids down yesterday and helped the kids find books and it took a lot out of me. I've been coming home and wanting to sleep but forcing myself to stay up so I don't mess up my sleep schedule. I'm currently debating if I want to write a few letters to 5th graders who are going to camp. I just don't know if I have the energy. I'd like to write a few but I'm not sure to which kids. I know all of the kids minus the newer students. If I decide to write one I'll have to write it before Friday. I guess we will see. If I were still working with them I would probably write one for them, but I'm not so I don't feel as obligated to.