Does everyone understand #4? Why are you not on #4? I wrote it on the board!

I've just spent the last four days subbing in two different classrooms. And for fun on top of that, I've been doing Santa's Workshop before and after school.

When you are subbing, your house becomes a disaster from lack of love, your children become secondary and you start to hate kids. Because they are so loud. And they'd rather play with the fart putty in their desk (which I sold them at Santa's Workshop).

The problem is, subbing is just like temping. Except there are 30 people waiting for you to tell them what to do, and I've spent a lifetime trying to avoid doing stuff. So I'm hardly qualified.

When I temped, I temped because it made money and because you aren't REALLY an employee. Everyone ignores you and expects nothing of you. So you can just do your own work and get paid for it while you're sitting at someone else's desk.

Subbing is an actual JOB. There are a bunch of eyes on you. You give an assignment and then they cross their eyes, or go through their desks or talk to their neighbor. In fact, they talk constantly. The only time they're not giving a running commentary on exactly what's going through their heads is when we're reading aloud. This is my favorite time waster I mean learning tool. The reading of the ultra boring story where we stop every paragraph and I explain what's going on, which is called COMPREHENSION but should really be called DEATH TO ART. Except today we were reading about a family that built a house for somebody and then somebody built a house for them. That was pretty awesome. Maybe read aloud is fun. What the kids like best about read aloud is if they're the reader, they get to pick the next reader. There's that moment of power, where all your friends are raising their hands, DYING to be picked as the next reader, and you get to look around and pick JUST the right person.

I remember school, and I remember those tiny moments of power. I didn't know how loud our class was in 3rd grade. I'm sure we were loud. The best teachers were the creative ones, the ones that made you laugh and who listened to you and made you feel important. So I try to do that for kids. I'm not that interested in the rules of things, like make sure to use 50 words in your summary. Summaries are boring. If they write a good sentence, I say good job and give them a Christmas sticker. But I guess part of school is boring. Routines are good. I'm learning now to write the day's agenda on the board, broken down in digestible half hour increments. I can do a half hour of anything. A half hour gives you a feeling like nothing will last forever. Even division.

This is how I, the underqualified and badly dressed, have become your student's fake teacher. Teacher for a day.

I do want to slap certain children, but only because they scare me with their desire to play with the phone cord in their leopard print spandex tights which I'm sorry looks good on NO ONE. Or when a kid just won't stop talking, and has no desire to do anything. That's depressing. I feel like I'm not motivating that kid. Haven't figured him out.

Anyway, tomorrow I don't have to hold anyone's access to knowledge in my hands. I don't have that huge responsibility. I get to play in my old boss's garage, organizing it for him. I can be quiet and invisible, and try to remember who I am. Get back to daydreaming.

But I am proud that I know a ton of kids, and that the enthusiastic learners just burst out with their hand waving in the air. That look of earnestness, I love that sweet innocent excitement. It's a pure, wonderful thing. I think the problem is that I can't just melt into that experience, since I have to guide all the kids, not just the few wonderful ones.

That melting I save for my own kids. That's why motherhood just blows away everything else. The power of raising small people into loving and kind adults. It makes you thick and you can feel the worthy.