Substituting and a Scary Parade

Yesterday I got my second substitute teaching gig here in town, which equals a big PRAISE.THE.LORD. Most days I find ways to busy myself, but Thursday's and Friday's are usually long and boring since Thomas is gone 6:30-5:30. I had 5th graders yesterday and it was quite a hoot. The last time I subbed the first kid to walk in was WEEPING about his new haircut. Literally weeping because he didn't like it and someone made fun of it. I had to lie and tell him he had a great haircut when I really wanted to tell him it looked like his mother placed a bowl on his head, cut around it, and then gave a crooked snip in the front and sent him on his merry way. But I didn't say that.

Anyway, the first kid to walk into class yesterday was also talking about his bad haircut. I thought surely I was dreaming to be having to deal with this again, and at 8am {if you've ever spent any time around me at 8am, you know that encouragement, kindness and patience, much less speaking, aren't things that are dripping off of my tongue.} So this kid is complaining but also telling all of his classmates he isn't THAT worried about his haircut because everyone knows that hair grows half an inch a day. I couldn't let this kid get away with this kind of fallacy. So I pulled out a ruler and Google and proved him wrong.

It always makes me feel better to prove a 5th grader wrong.

However, the point of this post is not to tell you that I am a narcissistic crazy person who needs to belittle 5th graders in order to feel better about myself. It was to tell you the hilarious comments that I got from the 5th graders yesterday. Our conversation went somewhat like this at the beginning of the day:

Me: Hi boys and girls. I'm your sub for the day and my name is Mrs. Austin.
Girl 1: You look like the nicest sub we've ever had.
Me: I am a very nice sub, until you disobey and talk when you aren't supposed to. Then I get mean really fast.
Boy 1: Your name should be Mrs. Awesome instead of Mrs. Austin.
Me, in my thoughts: Watch out for that kid, he is trouble and is probably throwing spit balls when I turn around and telling the other kids I am an ugly witch. He is also going to be a disaster when he starts dating.

Later in the day, after a slew of questions about my Southern accent and why I am living here with my Southern accent, I was cornered and had to tell them that Thomas plays for the Patriots. One little girl said "oh! Does that mean you are Gisele?" Why yes, yes dear girl, I get that all the time. I do resemble Gisele and you will make an A on everything you do today, thankyouverymuch.

And just so I don't have a post with no pictures {this is for you Sarah Kathryn} I thought I'd throw in a couple from the local Christmas parade. There were many things about the parade that were slightly terrifying, including 15 or more local dance studios, Boy Scout troops, and creepy people driving their old cars. Thomas  grabbed as much candy as possible and had a hysterical running commentary. One kid looked straight at him from his float and Thomas said "hey! How about some candy?" And the kid threw him a scrunched up piece of paper. I'm not kidding. And Thomas muttered bad words under his breath about that kid.

Then there was this pirate float. Enough said. Pirates+Christmas=our creepy local parade.

After I took this photo, the guy in the Santa hat gave me a creepy wave and smile. I think he thought I was taking it because I LIKED his float....

People bought things from this man. But not us. 

If you know what this is supposed to be, please enlighten me. 

Thomas with all of his treats. And an ice scraper. Please notice his hair.