The Big Wig

So . . . 

The Big Wig came again today.  You know.  The Head Honcho.  

The Superintendent.

Of the whole district.

Yeah.  Him.

Plus, a board member, the principal, and THE CHIEF OF POLICE because his wife just so happens to be our computer lab aide.

So yeah.

We knew The Big Wig was coming today because we got an email and it might have been on the announcements fourteen times.  My phone was blowing up this morning with text messages asking what was I wearing and could we still wear our usual Wednesday wear (jeans and a Spirit t-shirt), etc.  I mean, we were all aflutter.

Anywho, I told myself to relax this time.  I know what I’m doing.  I’m a veteran teacher, after all.

And I blog.

Hello?

I could do this.

I could definitely handle it better than how I handled it {last year}.

I was all prepared and ready to introduce Annie’s (The Moffatt Girls) December Journals for beginning writers.  

I fired up my ladybug (which is my document camera) and the projector before school started to make sure that the ladybug was feeling good and not grouchy (it tends to freeze) and I was all set.

All set, I said.

Then, when I showed my kids their December journals, there was applause.

Spontaneous applause!!!  And I didn’t even do a big ole thing, either.    Sometimes I do a big ole thing to ensure that whatever we are doing will be received with an outpouring of adoration for yours truly.  But I kind of just picked up a packet and said, “So this is going to be your December jour-” and there whoops and hollers and applause!

Was the Big Wig in my room at this time?

No.

Of course not.

I took a bow anyway.

Then I told my kids that we would be at our desks while I modeled my expectations, etc. on the ladybug.  I mean, it was Day One for our new Journal Writing Journey and I wanted to show them how to use the nifty word/picture bank and the sentence starter and the I Can statements . . . I have BIG plans for these journals and today was a very important Let’s Do This type of day!

They went to their seats, I went to the projector/ladybug and guess what?

Yep.

It was frozen and there was a message saying “No Connection”.

But, seeing as how no visitors had yet arrived, I took a deep breath, told my kids to hold on, and restarted my computer.

And then . . . 

DUN DUN DUN.

In walked all of the Head Honchos including the Chief of Police because that doesn’t make anyone nervous or anything, right?  I mean, surely I stopped at all of the stop signs on the way into work today, right?  It was raining, after all, so surely I abided all the laws of whatever-and-whatnot-and-holy-cow-here-they-are-and-I-am-at-the-computer-and-my-kids-are-at-their-desks-not-doing-a-darn-thing-because-I-told-them-to-hold-on!

Can’t breathe.

Loss of oxygen.

Heart Attack.

Get a grip, Kristin!  If I could have slapped myself, I would have, but that might have looked strange so I just told myself inside my head . . . FAKERS GONNA FAKE!

And I faked it.

And I started spouting out all this nonsense about subject and predicate and starting with a capital letter and tell me about your family and because you’re telling me about your family, which punctuation mark do we use . . . and any other big word I could think of besides actually saying the words COMMON CORE and RIGOR and PLEASE GET OUT OF MY ROOM NOW, MY LADYBUG IS FROZEN AND I AM NOT MODELING A DARN THING AND WHERE WERE YOU WHEN MY KIDS WERE SHOWERING ME WITH APPLAUSE?!  HUH?  WHERE WERE YOU PEOPLE?  HUH?

WAAAAAHHHHH.

The Head Honchos walked around and worked with kids.

They were there FOREVERRRRRR.

And by forever, I mean at least FIVE WHOLE MINUTES.

I found some time to walk over to my principal (I love her!) and I said in a pseudo whisper, “My ladybug is frozen and I am supposed to be modeling this lesson!“

And she said, “Oh no!  It’s fine!  Don’t worry!  This is terrific!”

And the superintendent overheard us and he said, “Oh no!  Well, we will have to work on getting you a new . . . a new . . . butterfly?”

And that broke the ice for me (I mean, how funny is that?) and then I decided he and I were fast friends.  Which means I basically said, out loud, to him: