I'm sitting downstairs.  I taught math all morning.  I helped my aunts pot plants.  I watered our yard.  Saved my hydrangeas.  Went to the gym.  Went for a run.  Spent time with teens at youth group.  And those are all good things.  But what is really good right now?  Is the box of chocolates sitting open next to me.  And the halves left of every piece because that's how I roll with Russel and I'm not in the mood to waste time here.

My day started with the words Mrs C, I ran out of meds yesterday and if you've ever been in charge of a classroom full of students who on a good day are cute monsters, you know what those words mean and you also know the way your day is now going to go.  Because cute monster students turn into the most noise, the most action, the most spit and snot and energy in any room in any building when those darling monsters don't start their day right.  And you know, too, that there isn't enough coffee in your cup.  There aren't enough tricks in the book.  There are too many medicated children- yes, but THIS ONE is not one of them.  No sirree.  This one transforms from a quietish bookworm to a wound up ball of nerves and there are parrot noises coming from the corner he has already put himself in.

He's going to try hard, bless his heart.  And he has enough self awareness to know that he won't be able to keep it together.  He's going to run up to you in the middle of your lecture Mrs. C, I'm having a hard time handling myself and when you give him a stuffed purple dolphin to hold he's going to repeat flippitty do flippitty dee to that dolphin for the rest of class.  All ninety minutes of it.

And your heart is going to start to break then.  Your nerves already have.  You might spend some time getting upset.  About the life he was born into.  About the long, long road ahead of struggling students.  About how easily people have children and about how many children there are who go unnoticed.

And then you'll pull him aside at the end of class.  Get down on your knees and look him right in the eyes and tell him how proud you are of him for trying.  He might not hear you.  He might not be able to by now because whatever is running free in his head is having a party up there.  You say it again anyways.  And then you tell him that you're taking him to recess next and Darling I want you to run.  I want you to run as hard as you can, as fast as you can and I don't want you to stop moving your body until you hear that whistle blow.  

He jerks his head sideways, Mrs. C, I really need a recess right now.

And at the end of it all-- the math, the other students, the meetings and the prepping, he's going to be what sticks with you (those frantic eyes, that stretched everywhere face).  Him, a box of chocolates, and a long, earnest prayer to The Father who loves the little children.