Yesterday, the unthinkable happened. Lakyra's vent stopped. Stopped. Well, it was still running but it was not getting any air to her. It just messed up. It is, after all, only a machine. Our classroom was turned into an emergency room for about 45 minutes. When she first told us she couldn't breathe, we started checking all the connections, plugged her into two different outlets, grabbed the ambu bag, buzzed the office, made phone calls. It all happened pretty fast, and this is hard to believe, but most of the other children never knew anything had happened. It seems almost unreal really. I was making calls and trying to talk to her until help came and I glanced at the children a couple of times and they just kept right on with what they were doing. Unreal. We were talking very calmly, of course, for Lakyra's sake, and as soon as help arrived I got them out of the room, but still I would've thought more of them would've noticed something was amiss. And Lakyra herself surprised me, too. She seemed so calm throughout it all. I was really very moved by the complete trust she seemed to have in us. A lot more than we had in ourselves. And I was convicted about what I wrote last time about not trusting people. Life is too short, too fleeting, to hold things in.
Lakyra didn't come today. There've been meetings, phone calls, more meetings. I've learned more medical terms in the last three and a half weeks than I learned the three years I worked in a hospital emergency room. It's so strange that this is happening. Today, I was filling out an order for supplies and I was thinking "Okay, pattern blocks, sentence strips, highlight tape, back-up vent, paramedic?"
I'm really liking these children a lot. Cole is probably my very favorite. Full of spunk and conversation. He makes me laugh every day. Today, I was feeling kind of down this afternoon and when that happens, I'll sometimes send a child across the hall to Shontelle with a post-it note on which I've written "Betty Frank". Betty Frank was Shontelle's grandmother who she tells really funny stories about. I was sitting at the computers trying to get a few more children going in AR and I didn't have a post-it handy so I said to Cole, "Run across to Mrs. Barnes room and tell her I need Betty Frank. Say it." I always have them repeat messages I'm sending them with. Cole said, "I've got it, I've got it." But I said, "Just say it, Cole." He rolled his eyes and said, "Easy. You need Freddy Banks." So I had my pick-me-up.
And then there's Jack. There's always something with Jack. He sits by me at lunch every day and carries on these grand conversations that I do try to stay tuned into, but sometimes I do wander off. The other day, he was telling me his MiMi was going to Hattiesburg to the drugstore to try to find him some Willy Wonka candy, either the kind with the golden tickets or everlasting gobstoppers. Hunter, who was sitting next to him, asked, "What kind of candy did you say?" Jack said, "Look, buddy, just eat your lunch, okay? We're trying to talk here." Then a little later, Alexis came over, as she does every single day, and handed me her milk carton to open. I took it from her and Jack said,"Hey girl. You gon' hafta' learn to do that yourself. She's tryin' to eat her lunch. Can't you see that? If I can open my milk, you can open yours. We the same age." He is also very proud of the fact that he can read "without talking". I'm impressed with it myself. He and I had a rather long, rather scholastic conversation about it recently. He said he'd noticed that not many kids can read in their head. "But I can. I'm one o' them that can." He looked around the room. "I'm probably the only one you got in here that can read in my head." He is. He read on second grade level at the end of kindergarten, so I've made him AR trainer. The tech guy, we call him.
I actually do have a roast in the oven and baked potatoes and some vegetables going, too. Today is the last Tuesday we can come home from school instead of going to a ballgame at 4:30. The thing that bothers me most about that is the mealtimes. The whole family table thing. And also, I just like a good meal. So part of it is just about my stomach.
Speaking of stomachs, I had a meeting in Hattiesburg Saturday--met Kim for lunch and we had a great visit and got some work done, too--and afterwards I stopped in Walgreen's in the pouring, pounding rain, looking for mints so I wouldn't have to make them for the shower Sunday. Kim had mentioned that I might could find something suitable in the Russell Stover section. No luck with that, but when I went in I saw Natalie and she insisted I go out to the car to see Latasha. I taught all three of Natalie's girls back when I was in my twenties and teaching in the 'hood. So, I went back out and stood in the pouring, pounding rain, soaked through to the skin, and Latasha told me I hadn't changed one bit and didn't look a day older. And there she sat with probably the biggest, ripest mid-section I've ever seen. I looked at it, touched it, and she said, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Atwood", which was I guess because maybe she's not married. Turns out she's having twin boys and she's 32 weeks along. The very day before that, Angela came to my classroom and told she'd just been having a conversation with a parent in an IEP meeting and I somehow came into the conversation. Angela said Chris didn't believe her when she told her I'm 40. She thought I was maybe in my late twenties. So, I'm thinking the Signature Club A stuff is working, even though I cannot manage to do anything about the lines around my eyes at all. I've tried every line Adrienne offers: vitamin C, caviar, vinoplex, olive oil. Maybe I just laugh too much. Or frown.
I ended up making the mints anyway, and I was really glad about it in the end. Just kneading all of it together, and rolling it, and molding it. Great therapy, which I needed.
