This week is FLYING like Tinkerbell

I was “Mama Tinkerbell” today and all my girls were baby Tinkerbells. Their imaginations and creativity keep me laughing every day.

The one little boy, Gianandrea, who speaks little to no English (the only English he knows are the prayers, please/thank you, bathroom, and our names.) Yesterday, I was leading an activity, the first group understood very well and completed it quickly. The second group, which had Gianandrea, was a little more difficult. Gianandrea got extremely frustrated, crumbled up his paper, threw markers on the floor, and when I went over to him he had the meanest facial expression on. He shouted something at me in Italian, and I had to go ask Melinda to translate. He said, “I’m mad at you because you didn’t look at my work when I finished.” We worked it out and crossed that hurdle. Today was a new day and Gianandrea was ten times better. He finished his math so quickly, which never happens, and did it perfectly. And… the best one yet… he spoke in English to me!!!! One full sentence. It put the biggest smile on my face.  

Music and art yesterday were… I don’t think there’s a word for it. They watched videos of Fantasia in music. The same exact ones they watched last Tuesday. Please tell me how you expect four year olds to sit through 30 minutes of videos… that they have already seen. They won’t. Don’t try. Art was better than last week… they did oil pastel drawings but they are still out of control because it’s at the end of the day. Today in PE, I wanted to scream. The two kids who need to exercise the most were told to sit out for not listening. Yes, that makes SO much sense. Sit the kids out who have the most energy. Gianandrea started crying and telling me something in Italian. I take the kids to PE by myself and the PE teacher speaks very little English. I kept asking for the two boys to join back in, he didn’t understand.

The students are learning “Hey Diddle Diddle.” Ale came up to me yesterday, grabbed my hand, and said “the dish ran away with the spoon.” I just love him. He has a fascination with making masks. 

I started picking up that my kids say “me no” instead of “not me” or “I did not.” It’s actually the cutest thing ever. We’ll say “who has to go to the bathroom?” “Me no.” Today, my diamond (Diamante) came up to me at the garden and said, “my finger really hurts Miss Heitz” and flicks me off. Haha, it was rather funny cause she just held it there for so incredibly long. We decided to have a boat ceremony today and named our pirate ship “Snake Fish Pirate.” The teacher (one from England) said when pirates really name their boats they take champagne bottles and make them break against the ship. Then took our pear juice and said “here’s our champagne.” Strange, right? I got very weird vibes when my two teachers were talking to each other today and got the impression they aren’t the biggest fans of each other. They balance each other out well and do work well together, they just have opposite styles of teaching and dealing with the kids. It can get confusing, especially for the kids, what they are allowed to do with one teacher and vice versa.   

Those were a few school stories... yesterday, Lauren, Katie S, Katie C, Kate, Kara, and I went shopping right after school. You know when you get in those “I want to spend money” kind of moods… well I had one… so you know what that means… I didn’t find ANYTHING. So we decided to go to a restaurant for appertivos, Gusto. It was awesome. 10 euros for a drink and all you can eat appetizers. I don’t think when the waiter said, “eat as much as you’d like” we’d actually take him seriously. On our way to the restaurant this man passed, got very close to me, and in the creepiest voice says, “I like to move it move it.” These men do not hold back. We found our way back like true City Girls.

For any of you who read this entire post, sorry it wasn’t more entertaining.