Kid Moments

Me: "Do you remember my name?"
Little Girl: "Kitty!"

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Teenage girl: "You know who you look like?"
Me: "Lady Gaga?"
Girl: "How'd you know?!"

(A few students from schools in Ottawa have made the same remark. This particular teen likes to call me "Hey, Lady Gaga" every time she sees me).

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Me: "My cat's name is Peter."
Kid: "Peter Griffin?"

(Peter Griffin is the dad from Family Guy)

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I've been reading "Walter the Farting Dog Goes on a Cruise" to the kids. So far only one kid has laughed out loud at the book. This same child has had me read it three times. The other kids just sit and listen quite seriously, even with my funny voices and sound effects. Otherwise they don't seem to find it funny. I can't understand. How is farting not funny? The cruise loses power and it's Walter's farts which propel the boat back to the port. Not funny when you're six?

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One of the children we tutor has a developmental delay. I say "we" because my coworker has joined with me to help this child, since he's especially energetic. Some prime examples of his energy include:
- throwing muddy puddle water at us
- running away and hiding in the school
- locking himself in the bathroom
- trying to spray us with the hand sanitizer
- grabbing the Windex bottle from the counter and spraying us for at least ten minutes, requiring the use of bristol board as shields so we could protect ourselves. He continued to spray as he ran to the bathroom to hide behind the stall. He stood on the toilet and sprayed us from above the stall wall.

I should add, all of the above were done with lots of laughter on his part. Mostly I laughed after the fact.

This same child also has made the effort to return after we've said goodbye just to shake my hand. How gentlemanly!

Today he marched like a soldier with me to the car. He also gave me props and some high fives when we dropped him off. We may barely read with this child, but we certainly have a lot of fun. Tag is his favourite.

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Another volunteer who shares a classroom with me was teaching a kid about the letter J. She was sounding out the letter "j-j-j" and reading words that started with J. "J-j-j-jam. Jam." The kid responded, "Jam - toe jam!"