St. "Punch"ricks Days

Today I was able to go help in Coopers class at school. I always look forward to these days when I get to see Cooper at school and get to know his teacher and fellow students. Well, today is St. Patricks Day, so all of the kids were so excited and hyper. They all had on their green clothes and when I came in, they were finishing up a project.

Each table was given a gold coin that they had to put on their table. Then they had to make a trap, in case a leprechaun came to steal their gold coin. It was a lot of fun to watch just how creative each table was with their traps. As soon as they were finished, they headed out to recess. While they were out there, I helped Ms. Clark take the gold coins from each table, turn over all the chairs, scatter paper all over the room, put Leprechaun "footprints" on the tables, and write a note to the class from Mac, the Leprechaun!

The kids came running back in after recess and they were so surprised and exciting about the missing gold coins. Well, I was looking around the room for Cooper, but could not find him. Finally, Ms. Clark came up to me and said, "Cooper is in the office....he got into a fist fight with a classmate at recess."

My thoughts: "Awesome! (Not really) Never in my life have I ever been to the Principal's office. In fact, when I was younger, I was terrified of the Principal. But, here I am. A mother of a son...wait....a kindergartner...who is in the Principal's office for fighting....what are the chances? How do I react? What should I do?

Well, when I found out who the other classmate was, I knew that Cooper was probably just defending himself. I walked down to the office to talk to him. (A side note: 2 of my friends are the secretaries for the school) The head Secretary, Kristen, smiled at me when I walked in. I sat down and here is how the story happened:

"What happened, Cooper?"

"Well, I was playing with Brayden. Sebastian thought I was hurting him, so he came up and slapped me across the face. I didn't even see it coming."

"So, what did you do?"

"I punched him in the eye. I was crying and the recess leader came over and took us to the office." (I had to turn away and smile because I was proud of my boy for standing up for himself)

"Well, you know you are going to have to go in there (office) next?"

"Do I have to talk to the Principal?" (tears filling up in his eyes)

"Yes. Just tell him the truth."

I went back to his class and the recess teacher told me that the other kid had started it. The Principal brought the boys back to the class and they have to sit in the class for recess tomorrow and think of something nice to do for each other. What a crazy day!