Am I tan yet?!

Obviously the main reason I love teaching is the kids.  And moments where you see them for the innocent-ridiculous-goofy kids that they truly are, always brighten my day.  This short story happened recently and I seriously needed it.  Just a good laugh and a moment to remember they are little kiddos and not actually people bound and determined to break all the rules in my classroom and drive me up a wall.  They don't mean to (always...).  They just can't help themselves yet.

Anyways.  To the funniness...

So as everyone is aware, winter isn't really feeling much like winter anymore.  At least not currently.  The kids at school are running around in t-shirts at recess and complaining it's already too hot.  So the other day at recess, I saw one of my boys laying on the ground in the play area.  -Part of our playground where the equipment is has the ground covered in gravel.  So he was basically laying in the rocks.  I thought he was hurt - had fallen and was crying or something.  So I go over to him and ask "What happened? Are you alright?"  He replies that he's fine and says something that I couldn't really hear.  So I ask what he's doing - if he's playing.  Again he replies with something I don't really understand.  So now I'm confused and still not sure what's going on.  I mean really -no other kid is laying in the rocks anywhere else that I can see, and it isn't THAT often that you see this at recess.  So I lean over and he definitely seems fine. He is smiling.  I ask him one more time "If you're not hurt and not playing, what are you doing?"  He starts laughing (he has tried to answer me three times and I just haven't heard or understood him) and says more loudly "I'm tanning!"  And as he touches his hand to his cheek he adds "Getting the sun!" A huge smile immediately spread across my face and I quickly walked off as I started laughing.  He -a 7 year old 2nd grader- was tanning, in February, by laying in the rocks fully clothed at recess. - Right in the middle of where all the other kids are running and they have to avoid him. 

The even better part of this story is that this boy has proceeded to tan EVERY day at recess this week!  I think it is amazing and it just cheers me up at the end of the day outside when I see him doing this.  Same spot on the rocks.  Same smile on his face.  Laying there - getting the sun.  

Today when our class was lining up at the end of recess, I overhead him ask another boy, one of his friends in our class, if his cheeks were tan yet. 

The kids are seriously the best part of my job.  I hope by the time I'm done teaching one day that I remember these stories just as much -if not more, than the more common ones about problem kids and classroom issues and disruptions and the extreme bad situations that instantly ruin not just your day but your entire week at school.  These stories about things like tanning are much nicer to think about.  I hope I have more like these to remember and that they eventually drown out the other ones.