The Lions Look Easy...

I often tease that I am not teaching but rather that I am the ring master of a three ring circus. I will also joke on stressful days that I am going to run away and join the next circus that passes by doing any odd job from tightrope walking to lion taming. Tuesday was one of those days when not only did the circus appear tempting, but the lions looked pretty darn easy. It started with me having been absent on Monday which means my kids had run wild over my new assistant and two substitutes. They smell weaknesses and take full advantage of them - Lord do they smell any weaknesses in the system and take advantage of them! So then that morning my little Houdini who has a trach and the fastest hands to pull it out was late getting to school. She removed it before we ever left the office so her mother put it back in right there with little difficulty once I restrained her hands. So then I am juggling three bags and a child in a stroller who likes to try to topple forward out of it or stick her hands under the wheels. Fun! We make it to speech therapy to discover that one of my other little ones has just vomited all over the floor. I make a note to call his mother when I get to the classroom and decide that wrestling with Houdini in her stroller is not worth it for the 5 remaining minutes of speech. At that point her trach is still in. We walk four doors down the hallway to my classroom and her trach is out. Oh Great!! I have no idea how that beautiful but stubborn and fast child does that so darn quickly and when I am right there. After callng for supplies and assistance from my assistant (we also had a substitute but I spared her the trauma) I began attempting to replace it. Um, no. It was not going back in and she was getting quite mad. I then decided that we had a school nurse for a reason and she could come do this for me. We called her "emergency" and she came strolling in about 2-3 minutes later. Would it kill this woman to run? She could not get the larger trach back in either (ha!) and we had to go down to a smaller one. Even that was hard to get in and she almost surrendered to calling for back up (either mom or 911) before it slid in. Apparently Houdini was so mad that we were messing with her that she tensed every muscle in her body including those in her trachea. Thanks little one. :) We then did the most ungraceful ballet trying to add the trach collar to it while holding it in place and keeping her arms down. It was a 3 man job and then some. Ugh! In the end her mom came up to the school to replace the trach with a larger one anyway and show us again how easy it is - well yes, it is easy when it is your child, when she is not angry, and when you have been doing this daily for 5 years. Cut us some slack here. So then I finally called the mother of my child who had returned breakfast and she agreed to cme get him as soon as she could. We then had what could only be described as chaos. Children trying everything they could to test limits because they sensed weaknesses. Climbing up and over shelves, throwing toys, dumping art materials, and the list goes on. My beautiful little heartbreaker went into attack mode because she was so stressed and frightened. I wish she had another way to communicate but I understand why she scratches and pinches. Oh, and at lunch one child choked and almost allowd me an opportunity I did not want to practice the Heimlich maneuver. I swear that there is never a dull moment. I also think I could hear circus music in the background all day over the chaotic din. Those lions, they look nice and cuddly and easy to control compared to my little mob. I wonder.......