Meet the Teacher

If you took Mary Poppins and made her more modern, prettier and stuck her in a kindergarten classroom, you would have little kid's kindergarten teacher. I swear to you that I could not have custom ordered a more picture-perfect first teacher than this woman. She is outstanding and award-winning. She looks and talks like a Disney princess and has every one of those little kids convinced that she chose each of them to be in her classroom because they are so special.  When I had lunch with them they all beamed with excitement as they said "She choose-ed us! Because she knew we was the best! That's how comes our line walkses so straight to the cafatewia."

little kid adores her and as a result, loves school.

She's been teaching for 21 years (but she looks young) and has read the same poem on curriculum night every one of those 21 years. I can't find it for the life of me but it's a poem from a mother to a teacher about sending her daughter to kindergarten and how she loved this child since before she was born, knew her name since before she was conceived, that she was her miracle and her entire universe and she was entrusting her to this teacher now. She warned us before she read it that she cried every single year.

And she did.

And I don't mean a little weeping, this woman broke down and had to stop to compose herself THREE TIMES throughout the poem. Three heart-wrenching, painfully awkward, completely silent and still moments as she got herself together. She sobbed through some of it. The men in the room were flabbergasted and tense and the moms couldn't help but get teary-eyed at her emotion. She blurbled about how she doesn't know why our children were with her but she knew in her heart and soul that they were meant to be here with her and that she truly thought every single one of them was a miracle and felt blessed to be entrusted with them.

At first I was stunned by this odd public outburst. Then I was moved by her vulnerability. And by the end of it, I just loved her so fucking much. I can't even leave the f-word out of it because it went beyond loving her as a teacher; I love her as a person and a mother. She GETS IT, really, really gets it, the importance of her role in their lives. She loves them like a second mother would and I love her for that.

I feel like my kid won the lottery having her as a teacher. And to think, she feels lucky to have him!

She did laughingly share with everyone that little kid is the only 5-year-old she's ever heard say the words "brain fart" and that although she laughed she had to tell him it wasn't allowed, and that was a little bit embarrassing--but if that's the worst of it, I'd say we're doing good.

So let it be known that I cried at curriculum night, and not because my kid says brain fart.