Last night I had a dream in which the girl with autism spoke. I don't remember what she said, but I remember that it was three short words. When I woke up, I couldn't get it out of my head how bizarre it is that I don't know what her voice sounds like. I've been around her for 15 days or so, 5 hours each day, and I can't even fathom if her voice is high or low or rich or light because she has yet to say anything. It's just a very odd thing to think about... if you think about it.

So, yesterday was good. I actually didn't feel as exhausted at the end of the day as I have the past few weeks. I just had a royal headache, instead. Since I'm on the topic of the girl with autism, during Calendar time [talking about what day it is, month it is, how many days we've been in school so far, what the weather is like, etc.] I sat on the rug between the girl with CP [in the wheelchair] and the girl with autism. The girl in the wheelchair motioned to me and I noticed that she had snot coming out of her nose. So, I got up and walked over to get her a tissue. After sitting back down, the girl with autism showed me her index finger, which she had just pulled from her nose, and it was wet. SO, I asked her if she needed a tissue and her response was to forcefully blow air through her nose, causing a good amount of snot to shoot out onto her upper lip. I took that as a "Yes". When I brought a tissue back to her, she wiped her nose and then offered it back to me - I showed her where to throw it away. On the way back to sit down, she blew snot out of her nose AGAIN and I quickly realized that she intended this to be a game - a disgusting game that I didn't feel like playing. I got her another tissue and told her that she wasn't going to get anymore - she looked over and saw that the tissue box had mysteriously disappeared.

Last week, the kids all laid down on sheets of butcher paper and got their body outlines traced. This week, the goal was to have each kid paint in the outlines making them look as much like themselves as possible. Well, who knew that each kid would take SO long? Only 6 have finished theirs so far - but, I took a couple kids out yesterday morning during the sacred "Houghton Mifflin Reading Program" time... a TOTAL no-no. Because so few kids had gotten the opportunity to paint themselves, and because the Look At Us! theme is coming to an end, Miles made the executive decision to let kids be taken out during this time. Well, at one point, I walked back into the room [we're taking them outside to do this - the classroom has two big doors that lead outside...] to get some more Peach paint and who should walk in the room with "Houghton Mifflin Reading Program" checklist in hand but the PRINCIPAL [yes, the Principal actually has to go from room to room with a checklist making sure that this reading program is implemented every day to the "T"]. Busted. Immediately, I closed the doors, leaving them only open a crack so that we weren't locked out, but, sure enough, the Principal must have heard the scratching of paint brushes on butcher paper because he stuck his head out to have a look-see. Busted. HOWEVER, to our great amazement, the checklist that the Principal left behind for Miles made no mention of the two kids that weren't being introduced to the letter "Vv". I'm sure that we've now ruined their chances of getting into the college of their choice...

One of the kids that I took out so that he could paint his outline has an UNBELIEVEABLE amount of energy. I mean, this kid speaks at MAXIMUM VOLUME at all times and is so constantly WIRED that he always has beads of sweat on the bridge of his nose. Not surprisingly, this kid's approach to painting is quite like his approach to speech - WAHHHH! Not only did he use copious AMOUNTS of paint, he ended up using EVERY COLOR AVAILABLE. I thought that the red and purple striped shirt that he painted on himself was nice, but apparently he felt that it should have GREEN polka dots, ORANGE striped sleeves, and BLACK arm pits. His BLUE pants ended up getting YELLOW splotches, and his face got PINK and GREEN chicken pocks. I told him that he should try to make it look like himself as much as possible, but he just seemed to be having too much fun. Plus, I really didn't want to stiffle this kid's creative impulses - heck, he could be the next Haring or Pollock.

I'll save the more serious topics for tomorrow.

OH, even though it is Friday, I went over to school for the last hour of the day today because the kids were getting a "Kindness Party" and I just couldn't miss it. At the end of every day, Miles asks the kids to reflect on the day and come up with things that they "appreciate" from the day - whether it be things that they liked doing or were meaningful, or nice things that people did for them or said to them. For each thing that the kids mention he puts a small amount of beans into a jar, and, when the jar is full they get to have a party. Well, they filled up the jar this week so they got pizza and apple juice, and got to watch a "Country Mouse, City Mouse" video. At the end of the day today, one of the kids said that they appreciated that they got to have a party, so, the Kindness Jar is already starting to fill up again. After school, I ended up hanging around, helping Miles get things together for next week, until 4:30. It was my day off and I went in anyway. How dedicated am I??