Pardon me if there are any errors in this entry or if any of it doesn't make sense. I'm running a fever and feeling rather icky (whatever stomach bug Gabriel had last week has hit me in full force), and I'm going to do my best to proofread and spellcheck, but with a fever this could get pretty odd.

Anyway, I wanted to post about the volunteering I've been doing in Gabriel's school. So far it's been exhausting, but fun. I now realize that those who teach young children have to have the patience of a saint.

I'm volunteering every Thursday afternoon. Last week it was cut short. When I was working on making copies of an assignment, Gabriel was brought to me after he had just thrown up. So, I had to leave early.

Yesterday I was able to do the whole afternoon. I cut out painted plates and glued them to black paper with the name of the kid who painted the plates and a statement written by them of "I can..." and then an affirmation of something they can do very well. It ranged from painting, to being happy, to catching turtles. Gabriel's was "I can read". I also worked in the centers with the kids and we worked on matching a number of leaves to a tree that had a number on it and matching lower case letters to upper case ones. Then, I worked with them in the computer center for a bit while they made and printed out trees. That part wasn't easy because I had no idea how to work the program they were using, Gabriel freaked out at one point and tried to turn on a fire extinguisher, and another kid freaked out because he wanted to make a face instead of a tree.

I had fun and am glad to be volunteering, but wow, being a teacher of little kids has to be one of the most insane jobs out there. I was exhausted after one afternoon of it! Like I said, patience of a saint.

Oh, and I'm still a kid magnet like I was in his preschool. For some reason, the kids in his class also gravitated towards me and wanted to hang out with me. So weird.