The Reaction

Six year olds are awesome! I'm learning more about this stage of development every single day.

Nathan comes in to volunteer in our classroom quite a bit. I think it's because he's a saint. So, my children are fairly familiar with him. By that, I mean that the last time he came walking into my classroom, one of my students was so excited to see him, he fell right out of his chair! "Mr. Mulder!" They like him.

So, last week, I told my students that I had gotten engaged. Riley guessed right off, "to Mr. Mulder?" To that, Emanuel chimed in, "You're gonna marry Mr. Mulder? I think I'm gonna be sick!" A few minutes later he asked me, "You didn't kiss him, did ya?" I just asked him, "What do you think?" In both classes, I got a resounding, "Ewww!"

Well, the students got over their initial disgust, but it still seems to be sinking in. The next day, I had one little boy decide that if I was engaged yesterday, I must be married today. So, he concluded, my name is now changed to Mrs. Mulder. Not yet, buddy!

And then there was Rylee. Rylee is an adorable little girl and she is girly to the core. She wears cute hair ribbons that match her outfit. She always chooses pink paper when given the choice, and she only plays with other little girls. She also did not think it was gross that I was getting married. She wanted to see the ring. :)

Well, Rylee's mom comes in to volunteer in our classroom, and so she told me what Rylee had said when she had gotten home. She told her mom that I was getting married. Her mom asked her if I had a pretty ring, and she told her mom that yes, it was very pretty. And then she thought for awhile and came back to her mom, "They're going to get married and then they'll probably have kids, huh?"

Her mom answered, "yeah, they will, and Miss Parrish probably won't teach anymore."

"She won't? Well, Mr. Mulder can stay home with the kids!"

"Well, Rylee, it wouldn't matter anyway because by then you won't be in kindergarten anymore and she wouldn't be your teacher anyway."

"She won't?"
And so now we begin breaking the children in to the tragic reality of life. We can only shield and protect them for so long. At some point, they have to be faced with the harsh facts:

Your kindergarten teacher is not your teacher for life.

I guess it's about time to start talking about it anyway-- it's going to take a couple of months for it to sink in for some of them. :)