April Fools - Kids vs. Teachers

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I love holidays. All of them. Well.....99% of them.

April Fools Day is the one holiday I actually don't like. Mostly it's just because I can never think of good pranks to pull on other people, so I just choose to be a bad sport about it and call the whole holiday stupid rather than participate.

But this year, I kind of did start to like it! All thanks to the fact that I have the cutest class ever. And I'm not even April Foolsing you.

My favorite moments, in no particular order:

1. When C bounced into class, eyes huge, and walked straight up to me.

"Mrs. Shimp," she said, "Today is April Fools Day. Did you know?"

"Yes!" I told her. In fact, I had remembered five minutes before school started, which just barely gave me time to take Lunch / Recess out of our daily schedule.

"I have an April Fools for you," she announced. "Knock knock."

"Who's there?"

"Interrupting cow."

Oooh! My favorite knock knock joke! I paused. Then - "Interruptingcowwho?"

She stared at me. "Wait. Wait, do it again."

"Interruptingcowwho?"

".....Moo! Wait. Do it again."

"Interruptingcowwho?"

"Moo! Ugh. Mrs. Shimp. Again."

"Interruptingcow-"

"Moo!"

2. When C came over to me again, and ruined my April Fools spirit with this sentence: "Mrs. Shimp? Lunch isn't on the daily schedule....are you trying to April Fools us?"

Whelp. There goes that. "No," I said. "I just forgot to put it up." And I put it up and silently vowed to never try to April Fools anyone ever again.

3. When M, my super-shy, super-quiet kid, walked up to me with the "I" card. "Mrs. Shimp, how do you spell is?" he asked. Then, immediately after, "April Fools." A sly, sneaky smile crept up on his face and I burst out laughing. So then, for the rest of the day, other kids were coming up to me with their own versions of the joke: "How do you spell a? April Fools!" "How do you spell he? April Fools!!"

4. When A suggested that I go get the most yappy, annoying puppy I could find, and tell Stephen that I bought a dog. This is actually such a good idea and I wish I had thought of it earlier because I totally would have done it!

5. When M, whose mom is quite pregnant, had this suggestion:

M: Does Stephen know my mom is pregnant?
Me: Mmmm, maybe? I think so. I've probably mentioned it.
M: Well, maybe you can April Fools him, and tell him that my mom had her baby. And then he'll be all excited and be like oh my gosh and then you just be like April Fools!

6. When, with 15 minutes until lunch, I suddenly got back in the April Fools mood. And when J came over to ask if I was going to read with her guided reading group, I said: "I think I'm actually going to get to all the groups, because we aren't going to lunch today."

Confusion. "Huh? We're not going to lunch?"

It was already hard to keep a straight face. I nodded sadly. "Yeah, the cafeteria ran out of food, so we won't be able to go to lunch. So we're just going to keep doing guided reading."

Now she was starting to look a little panicky, and B had heard and was staring at me with his mouth open. "What!?" he cried. "But I'm so hungry!"

"Me too!" J murmured. "So we really don't get lunch? They don't have anything left?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry," I said. "I better tell the whole class."

I thought for sure someone would remember that it was April Fools....but miraculously, no one did! Every single jaw dropped when I made my announcement.

"But I brought my lunch," H said. "Can I eat it in here?"

I shook my head. "That wouldn't be fair to the kids who were going to buy lunch."

"So no recess either??" asked IC.

"No, we'll have Recess still, just a little bit later," I assured them. "But it's okay you guys! I'm hungry, too. But just one day we'll be okay going without lunch."

M asked if she could call her mom to bring her food, and even offered to have her mom bring enough for everyone to have lunch. I told her that would be really nice and that she could call her at Recess. It made me smile to hear some of my kids who had brought a lunch offer to share with their friends who hadn't. They were all teaming up together so no one would starve and it was the cutest thing!

When I finally told them 15 minutes later, "Everyone line up.....we are going to lunch, April Fools!!!" they all ran up to me and wanted to give me high fives.

"Mrs. Shimp, you got us so good!" they screamed, happy as can be.

K shouted that that was the best thing I'd ever done, and L wanted to hug me, she was so proud of me.

If I had only known earlier that the best way to get popular with your students was to tell them lunch was cancelled....I would have done this a long time ago :)

Baby McElderry

Half of my friends are pregnant. Sometimes I get dramatic and say all of my friends are pregnant, and that's not really true. But literally, half of my friends are pregnant right now. Or just had a baby. 

Christine is one of my friends from freshman year of college. The first time I met her, she was eating Ramen out of a mug and I thought she seemed nice. The second time we met, she was running out the door with some other friends, wearing a toilet paper pageant sash and a crown, on her way to look for candy, or boys, or both, and I decided we needed to be friends. 

So when she told me she was pregnant, and then later when she asked if we could have a gender reveal party at my house, I was thrilled both times! I love hosting parties. I love thinking of a theme and looking on Pinterest and making my house cute and making treats, and the one part that kind of stresses me out about parties - inviting people and wondering how many are going to show up - was already going to be taken care of for this one. 

Besides, it gives me a real reason to clean my house. I know I live there and I should like it to be clean all the time, but I'm just gonna be honest: if no one is coming over, I have a hard time keeping it clean. And so does Stephen. We just aren't the best at it. 

But we do manage to come through every time we have a party! Just, in our own very different ways. Here's how I clean for parties vs how he cleans: 

I....put everything away. I mean, everything. Where it belongs. Socks, tissues, computer cords, everything needs to go in its place. It is time-consuming, but I hate just hiding the mess. 

He.....puts everything he doesn't want the guests to see on our bed. He closes the door and says no one is allowed in there. Efficient? Yes. Long-term effective? No. 

I....wipe off tables / counters / chairs and sweep. I do not mop before a party, unless something is totally goopy or unacceptable, because everyone's going to come in and ruin it anyway.

He.....re-wipes off everything I just wiped. Re-sweeps everything I just swept. And steam-mops every room. 

I....make cute little treats / snacks and then have to re-wipe off all the counters. When I'm done, I'm always running out of time, so I just shove all the dishes in the dishwasher without rinsing them or anything. I'll take them out after the party and actually wash them, but for now, I'm hiding them.  

He.....could care less about the treats. He gets stressed about the clean counters that I'm ruining. He opens the dishwasher at least twice and starts trying to put away the dishes that are haphazardly crammed inside before realizing they aren't clean, and I am up to my old tricks again. 

I....like to hang up cheesy decorations, usually made out of tissue paper or some cute printable I got off of Pinterest, and usually hanging too low for people that are a normal height. 

He....likes to poo-poo my decoration ideas. I guess I understand....They are cheesy, and they will stay up for at least a week following the event. I just like them and want to keep looking at them!

Christine and Joe will be having a BOY! One day he'll grow up and get married and get a house. And when that day comes, I wonder how he will clean up before his parties?