So remember the time when someone said my ‘children outraged at the holocaust’ story was fake because I said that at one point everyone cheered – I literally walked back into my classroom today mid lesson and threw both my hands in the air for absolutely no reason and without explanation and all of them started clapping.
Today I was teaching my campers how to start a fire with flint and steel. As they grew increasingly frustrated, I mentioned that in a real survival scenario, they might use other tools and flammable materials at their dispense, like a camera lens or isopropyl alcohol.
I turned around to help two kids arrange their tinder. “Hey Ship, watch this!” called a voice. I looked over my shoulder to witness my favorite student create a fucking flamethrower by igniting aerosol sunscreen.
When the screams of surprise stopped, I said, “Good job. Very resourceful. Now please don’t do that again.”
I love this, no degrading, no punishment just, you did good don’t burn us.
he solved my fire puzzle, just… not in a way I ever want to see a child under my care do again
That sounds seriously like a TAZ thing – “You solved my fire puzzle. Please don’t do it like that ever again.”
I feel like being a camp counseler is just being a dm, all the time, for really ridiculous players, and everything is real
Children playing with Barbies in media:“This is Sally. She’s the mommy. She loves fashion, swimming, and she drives a convertible! She has a baby with Ken and sometimes they kiss.” OR “Look, I ripped Barbie’s head off! Ha ha ha! I’m a boy.”
Children playing with Barbies in real life: “This is Aurora, the fallen goddess of the sky. She has been banished from her kingdom and bound to a mortal body by her sister, who rose to power by human sacrifices. She now leads an army of cannibal water spirits who eat men. Sometimes they have orgies. They dismembered a traitor and keep her head on a Popsicle stick as a warning to others. Aurora can turn into a wolf and uses battle magic to paralyze her enemies. The king of the stuffed animals developed rabies and she had to slay him to save his people, but they do not understand that it was an act of mercy and kindness and are sending assassins after her for regicide. This is Aurora’s soulmate, Crystal, but her soul is trapped in a gemstone while an evil spirit pilots her body and attempts to murder her friends.”
I could pick Charlie’s clothes out for him everyday and he’d wear literally whatever. Clothing is stuff that hangs on him which society insists he wears. Fine. He’ll do it, but Charlie’s engagement with shopping, picking out clothes, and getting dressed is at the absolute bare minimum.
Buster, however, is full force in charge of what Buster wears. In fact the only thing keeping me on top of doing the laundry is that if I run out of Buster’s preferred and favorite clothing then Buu won’t be getting dressed. This child will not leave the house if they’re not attired to their own specifications (some days are more specific than others but overall that’s a true statement).
Buster loves pink and teal and My Little Pony and Hello Kitty and rainbows and bunny motifs and metallic shimmer. Buster crafts outfits for the day’s events and locations. Buster is fucking on point in a way I have never been about possibly anything in my entire life.
Buster refers to themselves as ‘he’ majority of the time but every so often ‘she’ and neither choice ever seems to correlate to how Buster decided to dress for the day. But, most of the time most everyone assumes Buster is a girl when we are out and about and I let my kid take the lead on facing other’s assumptions; sometimes Buster corrects them and other times doesn’t – Charlie, Lee, and I simply follow suit. This isn’t hard. This is a very easy thing we do.
When met with straight on questioning of their gender Buster delights in being cryptic and difficult. Which, I should clarify, means Buster is enjoying the interaction. And that’s just who Buster is as a person. This kid loooooooooves getting people’s goats and being smarmy. LOVES IT. If Buster corrects someone outright or doesn’t entice them into a game of patience then chances are that Buster really, really dislikes them and is answering their question so they’ll go the hell away. Which is rare.
Yesterday such an event took place and all this lead up has been so that you may enjoy to the most possible extent the following interaction wherein my three year old rips a grown man to fuckin’ shreds:
Charlie, Buster, and I were out and about doing some holiday craft shopping when a man about my age who looked like a cartoon lumberjack approached us.
Now this happens from time to time if you have children (and especially if those children are assumed to be little girls), people feel comfortable coming up and talking to you as a group. Which is okay. Sometimes folks choosing to insert themselves into our bubble is ill timed and weird but on the whole such interactions roll off like water on a duck, it’s just whatever. It’s fine. It’s nothing.
Mr. Lumberjack started out the same, asking my kids what they wanted Santa to bring them for Christmas. Talking about toys is always a hot topic so they babbled on for a bit then the burly man declared that such sweet girls would get whatever they wanted – Charlie corrected him and said he was a boy.
“OH! Well, no one would know with that long hair your mommy has on you.”
At this point my eyes glassed over as I rapid fire debated with myself every possible answer and outcome on how to approach masculine passive aggressive bullshit and while I hesitated Buster venomously spat out that he was a boy too. Kid wanted this guy gonzo.
“You’ll grow out of that phase, soon you’ll wanna look like me!” And then he gave a confident grin and a playful flex.
Buster dramatically looked this stranger up and down, scanning over his stained boots, dark blue jeans, yellow flannel and prideful scrappy veneer. My beautiful baby curled his lips into a sneer and said “Probably no.”
The woman a little down the isle snorted, confirming my suspicion she had been hanging around eavesdropping and not debating glitter, and our visitor’s face fell. Buster then dismissed him by theatrically turning his face up and to the side with a loud ‘herumf’ (which is a move adopted from the 3rd favorite pony, Rarity).
This is my new favorite story.
Today I learned that it is possible to feel maternal pride for a child entirely unrelated to me that I have never met.
my favorite part of babysitting is when a kid catches me eating something and im like “if you dont tell anyone you saw me eat an entire thing of bananas you can say a swear when im here”
kids fucking love to say swear words they could catch me eating a pound of uncooked bacon and wouldn’t say fuck all to anybody as long as i let them say ass
theyre the easiest set of people to bribe ever
UPDATE: My niece caught me eating doritos out of the bag and drinking tea directly from the pitcher and I told her if she didn’t tell anyone she could say “bastard” next time she got frustrated with something
She didn’t tell anyone about me drinking directly from the pitcher and 10 minutes later I heard her call her shoe a bastard and then collapse into laughter.
So ,I’m a music teacher and every year we have what are called “walk through observations”. Basically, this means that 4 times a year the principal or vice principal comes into my class to assess my teaching. Fine. Sure. No problem.
Well, today I was doing an activity with my 1st graders called “Musical Groceries”. Basically, they make up a fake shopping list and then together we figure out what the rhythm of the words on the list is. To do that, a small group of students plays the beat on the conga drum while the rest of the students move around the room while chanting the word. It sounds weird but it’s a great way for the kids to figure out the relationship between syllables and rhythm.
They quickly get bored of walking the rhythm so I let them come up with their own ways of moving around the room.( skipping, hopping, etc) One student suggested they hop around the room like frogs, way down low to the ground. Okay fine.
Or it was fine until my vice principal walked in to do my observation only to find 20 seven year olds hopping around the room like a hoard of little hob-goblins, rhythmically chanting “BREAD! BREAD! BREAD!” while five other kids played ominous beats in a drum circle.
I have never seen anyone look so confused in my life and I really don’t want to know the rating I got on my observation.
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