Years 13 to 22: The Reid Years; Crazy Stories

Pet Unit. This is not the mom with the bird!

During the ten years I worked at Reid Elementary in Cheney, I had some crazy things happen! One of those funny stories was related to a theme we were studying around Pets. I had one mom who said she could bring a parakeet to school to share with the children. She told me that she could just "check it out" from the Ben Franklin and bring it in. Now I knew that the Ben Franklin had small pets like birds and gerbils to sell, but check them out? Like a library? That was news to me! However, the next day, here she came with a bird to show us! The children were excited and the mom said, "I can let it out of the cage because it will come back." I was very skeptical about this, but before I knew how to respond, she had the bird out of the cage! Well the bird was not going to stay close and it flew straight up to the highest part of the ceilings. Now if you had ever been in the classrooms at Reid, the ceilings were extremely high in order to accommodate the observation towers. This was a disaster! How were we going to get the bird back down? Well the next thing I knew, this mom had her shirt off and was running around the room trying to capture the bird in her shirt! Luckily she had something on under her shirt or we would have learned more then the random facts about birds! Eventually she got the bird back and into the cage and we had an entertaining few minutes, as did anyone watching in the towers!

Another great story concerns a conversation I had with two boys at lunch one day. One of the boys and his three siblings lived with his grandmother. His grandmother had adopted the children when it became clear that their mother and father could not parent them. The grandmother had a female partner that was also part of the household and the two women were doing an admirable job of loving and caring for these children. Well one day this little guy announced, "My grandma and ________ are going to get married." I said, "Really? That's great news!" Now the other little boy got a frown on his face and said, "That can't happen. Your grandma is a girl and _______ is a girl, and girls don't marry girls. Girls can only marry boys." The first little guy looked crushed. He said, "Well I think they are getting married." The second little boy looked at him , brightened up and said, "Wait a minute! I think I know what they call that when that happens! They're called transformers!" I thought this was pretty funny! What kind of conversations had he heard his parents have concerning same sex couples?

Finally, in 1992, Leslie Cicero, the kindergarten teacher, and I took tap dancing lessons through the Cheney Parks and Rec program. I had always wanted to learn to tap dance, but never was given the opportunity growing up. So at the age of 40, I took this class. We had all kinds of fun, and many other Cheney teachers joined in. That June, Reid had a talent show. Leslie and I decided to do a routine we learned to the song Footloose. I had never done anything this crazy before! It's one thing to take a class; it's quite another to get up in front of lots of people and do it! Plus, Leslie, a life long dancer, had all the moves. I looked like a klutz. But I don't regret it, it was so much fun! Check out the video if you can on my Facebook page. Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10201296216353019&l=474257418877022923 Hope that works!