The Gross, The Hilarious, and The Precious

I love my job. This is my fourth year to teach first grade, and I still love it. Teaching first graders is one of the most exhausting, rewarding, frustrating, heartwarming, frazzling, and amazing jobs in the world. I categorize all of my "first grade moments" into 3 groups: the gross, the hilarious, and the precious. Here are just a few...

-The Gross:
1. watching a child pick their nose tirelessly and ruthlessly for a solid minute before I can catch their attention
2. realizing that a child is making a beeline straight for me as they are in the midst of throwing up, and then trying to catch what is left in my desk trash can
3. LOTS of VERY wet sneezes from VERY runny noses

-The Hilarious:
1. reading a student's story, which explains that "Mrs. Price loves diet coke"... except the student has misspelled "coke" and has actually written a male body part... yeah, we fixed that before sending it home!
2. another student's story about some "funky" music but spelled with a 'c' instead of an 'n'... another thing we fixed before sending it home!
3. learning a whole lot more about my kids' parents than they would probably like... there are no secrets with a 6 year old
4. having to take everything said by my children with a grain of salt... for instance, having a "fluffy tummy"

-The Precious:
1. hearing a student slip up and accidentally call me "Mommy"... they get embarrassed, but I take that as a sign that I'm doing something right!
2. getting to be a teacher, nurse, counselor, and every other title under the sun to my students every day
3. getting 50 hugs a day

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."
Proverbs 22:6