It's Halloween; Give the Baby Some CANDY (not ice)!

Funny thing about pregnancy -- at no other time in my life would I smile when a good-natured but slightly mischievous student directed traffic around me in a hallway saying, "Coming through. . .watch out people. . .wide load, comin' through. . . ." What a dear! In actuality, Daniel was being more sweet than sarcastic since some of those itty bitty sixth-graders who tote backpacks twice their size are much more rambunctious and even less sure-footed in the halls than I am. Especially the as Halloween approacheth.

Let's see, we've had a full moon, a football game, and a Halloween dance all in one school week. Needless to say, the kids (and their teachers) have been off their rockers. I actually found myself slamming my hand down on my podium during my last class on Friday and saying -- very loudly -- "No one is leaving this classroom to go to the nurse for ice! Ice, contrary to popular belief, does NOT cure everything! We are taking a quiz, so sit down and get happy about it!!" Whew. At my school ice is dispensed as a cure for headaches (ouch!), styes in eyes, sprains and bruises of all kinds, but mostly as a cure for the "I want to get out of class for five to ten minutes" syndrome. What the nurse needs to be dispensing in that office is CANDY! I mean the kids do go to a lot of trouble to put on their best "Oh, I'm so injured, watch me hobble about, favoring the opposite ankle that I claim to have sprained" costumes. Or their "My head mysteriously aches everytime the teacher mentions the word, 'test'" face masks. Go ahead, give 'em some candy for their efforts! At least the candy would be eaten and done with rather than melting and leaking out of its bag all over the classroom, leading to -- you guessed it -- another trip to the nurse to drain the offending water and refill with more ICE. Also, candy would appease the teachers as well as the students, especially if it was chocolate candy!

Here's what I plan to teach my son about all of this: 1) good chocolate is a much more powerful antidote than ice, 2) studying for tests and quizzes decreases one's fear of them, and 3) a teacher's patience can only stretch so far; messing with a (pregnant) teacher on a Friday is like skating on paper-thin ICE!