8:15am, hallway duty, first-grade hallway
J: (Urgently running down the hall.) Miss Gotwals! Miss Gotwals! I can't get my seatbelt off!
E: (Confused. Obviously, he is not in a car.) Your...?? Oh, your belt...
(I pause, wondering if it's legal or prudent for a female teacher to be witnessed disrobing a six-year-old boy in the middle of a hall full of parents.) Mmm, can you try it yourself one more time?
J: But I already started peeing my pants!
(I look down. Sure enough, a wet patch is spreading quickly down the jeans.)
E: Oh! Ehhh...
(I frantically undo the belt. He looks up at me, dismayed. Clearly too little, too late.)
12:37pm, walking back from from lunch
(Two second graders are having a worried conversation in the hall. I see the boy point at me and say, "There's Maestra Gotwals!" and take off. The girl walks up to me.)
S: Umm, Maestra, do you have a Spanish class right now?
E: Not for three more minutes.
S: Well, the bathroom pass got in the bathroom trash can, and I can't get it out. Could you maybe, um, come and get it?
(Exactly how the bathroom pass "got in" the trash in the first place I never found out, but I was just able to fish it out from the bottom of the four-foot garbage bin with my adult-sized arms. One for two.)
1:30pm, just before 2nd grade Spanish class
(One student hurries to my door before the rest of the class, pulling her shirt down as far as she can.)
C: (Whispering.) Maestra, I peed in my pants just a little bit, I couldn't hold it.
E: (Thinking, unbelievable--how do I attract all this bathroom drama when it's not even my fault?) OK, come on in, we'll get you a pass to the office and nobody else will know, it'll be fine...
Seriously now, why wasn't this part of the training I received in Curriculum and Instruction: Foreign Language Methods?
