"Earwax!"

Today is Sunday, and, as many of you know by now, that means recounting what the little children in my Primary classes said or did today.

Experience #1:

Boy #1 (on the verge of tears): But I don't want to sit by [Girl #1]. I want to sit by [Girl #2]

Me: Do you want to trade places with me? You can sit by [Boy #2].

Boy #1 (further distraught by this suggestion): I don't want to sit by [Boy #2]. I want to sit by [Girl #1].

Girl #2/Four-Year-Old Diva (moving her head side to side): Well, she doesn't want to sit by you!


For the second hour of Primary, I was moved from sitting with the Sunbeams to team-teaching in the CTR 4 class.

Experience #2:

Near the end of classtime, one of the boys in the class came up to me, stuck his shoe in my lap (with his foot still in it, of course), and asked, "Can you tie my shoe?" This is the same boy who had spent almost the entire class period cracking jokes and laughing at himself. The same boy who had spent ten minutes of class looking for the cocoa brown crayon in the crayon case, not because he wanted to color with it but only because he liked looking for it and saying the words "cocoa brown" over and over. The same boy who earlier in the class had stuck a crayon in his ear, turned to me, and yelled as loud as he could, "Earwax!" And giggled.

I replied that indeed I could tie his shoes if he could stop wiggling. He tried hard to oblige my request, but the poor fella was standing on one leg while I attempted to tie a double knot in his shoe laces. Naturally, when he lost his balance completely, he figured that doing a swan-dive into the carpet would be the best way to hit the ground. I tried to catch him before he re-arranged his freckled face, but not before...

RIIIPPPP!

Yes. That is exactly what happened. I caught the boy in flight in one quick motion and simultaneously ripped the crotch of my pants in the process. Needless to say, I kept my legs fairly close together and put my hands in my lap for the rest of the class period.

Experience #3:

The end of class finally came. The children finished their coloring around 11:54 and all went to stand by the door. The other teacher told everyone (they were all being a bit noisy) that they ought to go sit in their chairs until their parents came to pick them up. The wee'uns returned to their seats, halfway reverently. The teacher then suggested they all play the Quiet Game (Note: When I was little, we called it Quaker Meeting, but sometime during the 1990s the Quakers sued the state for denominational discrimination and got the name of game changed to the Quiet Game).

At various junctures, the other teacher and I would try to trick the little boys and girls into talking, but they resisted with firm resolve. You might have thought we were on Easter Island with the prevalence of stone faces in that classroom. Finally, I asked one of the boys a yes-or-no question.

He shook his head.

I nodded my head.

He nodded his head. Then he said, "Mm-hmm."

I smiled and said, "Woops."

He said, with a tiny smile, "Dang."

The teacher and I chuckled.

The boy put his face in his hands.

And wept.

The two of us tried to convince him that we were at fault and should not have tried to trick him into speaking, thus causing him to lose the game.

He wept.

We told him he was back in the game.

He wept.

We told him to be happy for his mom when she came to get him.

He wept.

His mom came. The boy, still weeping, explained the situation about losing the Quiet Game, adding that he had been particularly good today and had answered many of the questions before the other children had. His mom told him that he was wonderful and that he would just have to practice the game at home. He brightened up and left smiling, probably feeling pretty good about himself.

But I will never play the Quiet Game again.