When someone reminds you of someone else … and it is NOT the best reminder!

I won’t go into details; but recently I had a conversation about PTSD and Craigley ... and realized that Michael reminds me of Craigley … basically not a bad guy, but a seriously clueless guy!

(Something happened today in my classroom that reminded me of something that happened about 17 years ago … and I was inspired to write this post.)

A few weeks after Hans was born, we decided to go to a restaurant with my mother and Craigley’s parents. We were in 2 cars. We found a parking spot right in front of the restaurant and we let Craigley’s parents have it. Craigley decided to drop us off, park his car down the street, and come back with Hans who was in a detachable infant car seat. A few minutes later, Craigley walks into the restaurant and the five of us who were waiting shouted in unison, “where is the baby?”. Craigley forgot baby Hans in the car and just sauntered in. Even after he received all the distressed looks, he leisurely walked out to get Hans.

Craigley still looked sane while the rest of us looked insane!

Today, I came back to my classroom halfway through my lunch break. I like to do that because I only need 20 minutes to eat, and I’d rather hangout with my *work kiddos* for the rest of it. As I walked in, I was pleasantly surprised to see them lined up and ready to go outside for recess. Michael looked like a thorough professional. Then, I was like “where is kiddo A?” and Michael looked like he lost her and then realized that she was in the other ISP classroom. So, I told him to leave with the 4 who were ready, and I would bring the 5^th one out when she is ready. Michael insisted on leaving together. By the time the involuntary straggler was ready, the other 4 started acting up. One of them flopped to the floor and refused to get up. Michael wanted them all nicely lined up, and eventually they did, and this is what he said verbatim, “It took you all 8 minutes to get ready and it is almost November!”. When he said that, he looked ridiculous to me.

If Michael hadn’t forgotten a student, they would have already been outside!

A school year is 10 months. It has barely been 2 months, and I am beginning to lose my patience. I hope Michael gets a clue soon or it will get ugly! I am fiercely protective of all my kids. If anything will get me to be confrontational, it would be incompetence and the inability to apologize for its consequences.