the shoelace situation: the latest update

I'm not sure why I find my students' shoelace situation so funny, but I really do. The shoelace situation, consists of the untying and retying and retying and knotting of shoelaces while my students sit on the carpet, supposedly learning from me. I think it is hilarious - while being incredibly frustrating and annoying at the same time. 

Anyway, the latest tidbit of shoelace humor was on Friday, when I had my students stand up to sing a song about position words (ie. beside, behind, in front of). Dayonia didn't stand up. I repeated my direction to stand up. She threw me a pleading look and raised her arm to explain. Her hand was attached to her shoe. She had somehow managed to tie her wrist to her shoe, using her shoelace. And it was tied tight. Now, I've seen some interesting knots and combinations over the course of 330 days of sitting on the carpet with 4-yr-olds. I've seen shoes tied together (remember Amari trying to board the bus with her shoelaces tied together because she couldn't get them undone?) and shoelaces tied to other students' shoes (Jabari and Jaylen, last year, thought they were pretty clever until they wanted to do different things at center time - and then they hustled to untie them!), shoelaces used as chewtoys (a current common practice) and shoelaces pulled out of the shoes altogether and used for a wholly different purpose (such as smacking the nearest neighbor with them - Jayson has a hard time keeping his shoelaces in his shoes). Pablo would untie his shoelaces as soon as he got to the carpet and then knot them over and over until there were no strings left, which was quite effective in keeping his shoes tied. Another current trend is to have laces so long that there is about a foot of string left over even after a bow is tied - which is incredibly tempting for students walking next in line.  But never have I seen anyone tie their wrist to their shoe. It really was quite impressive: I don't think I could do it. 

Well, as Dayonia was going to be in the way of our song, I indicated that she needed to step off to the side until she fixed her shoelaces. She awkwardly jumped/hobbled off the carpet, knocking several other students over as she did so, and got to work untying her shoelace. It took her quite a while, since, as I said, it was really tight, and she had done a good job with the knot. Luckily for me, I discovered the problem right before we began a song, so I had a decent reason for my uncontrolled laughter.  

the benefits of an accent

Today I walked to the post office to get enough postage to mail my taxes. (They're done! Hooray!) While waiting in line, I noticed a woman speaking to a postal worker about a box she wanted to mail to Russia. She had a great accent and clearly didn't completely understand all of the customs associated with mailing packages. The postal worker patiently went over all options with her, showed her how the box should be packed, and even lent her the packing tape to do it with. The woman in front of me and I watched this interaction with fascination. After a few minutes, she said, "Maybe you have to have an accent to get that kind of help." I agreed that it was probably helpful. She said, "I can pull out a great German accent if I need to." I encouraged her to do so. 

Just then she was called up to the desk, and the Russian woman took her box and tape and went to pack it up. I was then called up to pay my extra $.25 in postage because my stamp was outdated. As I was digging through the change in my purse, the woman who was in front of me in line walked past me on the way out the door. "It doesn't work," she said. "Apparently you have to be from Russia."

Seen while walking to the post office: old woman with cane jaywalking across six lanes of merging traffic on main thoroughfare. She has more guts than I do. Or I have more brains than she does. Either way, crazy!