Volunteering

I am now volunteering at Dakota's school on Friday's during lunch time. This last Friday was my first time. I'm not doing it out of the goodness of my heart though. I'm just doing it so I can see how Dakota interacts with his classmates. Anyway, it was kind of crazy. The other mom that volunteers on Fridays describes it as organized chaos. I didn't think that I would have much to do but watch, but I was wrong! The cafeteria will filled with 80-something Kindergartners, and there was only me, the other mom, and the lunch room lady to take care of these kids! No wonder the teachers send home notes saying they could use cafeteria volunteers. The teachers all drop off the students in the cafeteria and then they go somewhere else and have a nice quiet lunch somewhere. Hardly any of these kids can open up their milk cartons themselves, and there are of course other things they need help with (like putting ketchup on their plates, cutting their meat, replacing dropped silverware, etc...).

One little girl told me that the boy sitting across from her said that he was going to kiss her hair. She was pretty upset by this. It was kind of funny, but I felt bad for her. I vaguely remember myself in 2nd grade telling my teacher that a boy kissed my hand. I remember being upset by that. Kids can be funny. Kids can also be really sweet - one other little girl told me that I looked pretty. And it's funny at how much attention these kids craved - maybe it was just me being the new person - but a bunch of them wanted my attention. The lunchroom lady wasn't really very nice, and definitely didn't have any patience with these kids. I understand that years of dealing with the kids have probably driven her off the deep end - but she could at least pretend to be enjoying being around kids. I mean, she does work at a school...

All the other kids were being loud and talking and laughing, but Dakota just kept to himself. Actually, when he was done eating he just there trying to blow on his lunch box to see if he could knock it over. When that didn't work, he kept knocking it over with his arms. I just know that he was imagining being Godzilla in that little dreamworld that he lives in. He is always pretending to be Godzilla or one of those other characters like that. Nobody can say that he doesn't have a good imagination! I'm just afraid that his imagination is what is making him struggle at school.