I know it may appear that I blew off my blog-posting last weekend, but I didn't.
I posted blogs, all right.
They were just invisible.
And there was a special code that you had to have in order to access them.
Did you get the code?
No?
Huh. Imagine that.
.
.
.

All right, dangit, I didn't post any blogs last weekend. I blew my 22-day streak of daily blogging because I dint feeeeel like bloooooogging. Let's all be grown-ups here and just move past it. Thank you.

Anyhoo, I promised you a story, a story of love and hope and determination. A story of the F word and abandonment and dejection, followed by more redemption and love and hope and determination. With a happy ending, just in case you're one of those who can't stand the suspense.

I believe I have spoken before of my little chair-throwing kindergartner. You know I love him; I really do. I wish I could predict what sets him off; I really do. I wish I could calm him and get him back on track every time he has a complete emotional breakdown; I really, really do. But I can't. And that was so very apparent last Friday.

Young Humphrey came in all out of breath to class, sat down and immediately took issue with the fact that I did not respond to his impulsive shouted-out answer to the question I had posed to the group, but rather selected the sitting-quietly-with-her-hand-raised Cinderelly good girl. Not. Good. Humphrey yelled out, threw himself on the floor, and screamed loudly about the fact that I never call on him, never, never, never! Now, God love him, this poor kid ends up in the principal's office fifty five gazillion times a day, and he's only five, and I didn't want things to end this way this time. So I quietly reminded him about the randomness of getting called on and how you should never give up hope, little cowboy, and don't you want to sit back down in your chair? Once you stop kicking it? Yes? No?

Here's the fast forward version of the next quarter hour: more chair kicking, yelling, table moving, object throwing, removing other kids from his area, threatening, running around, using the calm voice (that part was me, definitely not him). None of which worked. When Humphrey started getting a little too close to the other kids and threatening to put my eyes out with the magic finger pointer, I told all the other students to quietly line up and go out to the hallway. Then I buzzed the office and asked them to call the teacher back from WHEREVER THE HELL SHE WENT so that I could have a little assistance here, thank you. Humphrey went on running around in circles and found more things to throw at me, telling me all along how much he hated me and dropping the F word casually into the stream of things.

My favorite moment was when, after I didn't react with shock to his bountiful cussing, he yelled, "I saaaid f%*#!" Oh. Okay, then. Yes, you did. Bravo! Well enunciated!

Well, it was quite the 15 minutes and, at the end of it, after he hit me in the leg with the glue then locked himself in the bathroom, he did have to be carried away to the principal's office. As he was toted him down the hallway, he carefully folded all the principal's fingers down but the middle ones, then gleefully said, "You're flipping everyone off!" Later he informed the principal that one of the syllables in his last name sounded like "dumb."

Have I said that I love this kid? He's brilliant. I don't really care if he flips me off or cusses me out or says he hates me. I love him. There is no one else like him. And I am only sorry that his distress and pain is very, very real and that there is no easy fix for it.

But here's the up side. After he unburdened himself to the principal (Miss Wicked called on everyone twice and she never called on ME!), he was put into a different kindergarten classroom, you know, just to see how that went. Sometimes a change of scenery can do wonders. And it just so happened that I was doing a group in that very classroom, so I welcomed Humphrey with open arms and was delighted when he just sat right down and fit right in. And he did just fine.

And that was not such a bad way to end the week.