After lunch each day we have a time where we do math intervention activities.  We had completed our math journal and were playing a dice game with partners.  Today I needed to play because we were short a person.  This is kind of a loose time in our room–kids take care of things like the bathroom as needed.  They don’t have to ask me or report to me to leave the room.  They just go.

I am playing the game with a friend when I notice a Third Grade Friend enter the room.  She makes a beeline for me.

‘Ms. Hays, I need to tell you something.’ Her eyes are ginormous.

‘OK.Shoot!’

She glances around and out of the side of her mouth says, ‘One of your friends ate peanut butter off of the bathroom floor!’

‘What? What did you say?’

‘Yeah. One of YOUR friends ate peanut butter off of the bathroom floor!’

‘Oh my.  Thank you for letting me know.’

Friend and I enter into a staring contest.  I head her way and whisper, ‘I’m going to need to visit with you a little later.’  She smiles.  She thinks I will forget.  No such luck, Friend. This I will remember.

When I met with the friend, I started the conversation by asking if there was anything she felt like I should know.  Nope.  Nothing.  She didn’t have anything.  Are you sure?  Yep.

I sat silently hoping she would confess.

A few moments later, she blurts out, ‘I waited too long to go to the bathroom and I didn’t make it!’

‘Oh ok.  I am sorry that happened to you.  We can get that taken care of–no problem. Do you have anything else I need to know?’

Looking me straight in the eye, she deadpans me and declares, ‘Nope.’

Decision time.  Cut to the chase and call her out? Or continue to play this cat and mouse game?

‘Hmmm.  Did you eat peanut butter off of the bathroom floor?’

Smirking, she says, ‘Oh yeah.  I did.  I did do that.’

‘Why?’

She had no idea.  No one dared her.  She just did it.  Oh my.  Never, ever in my teaching lifetime have I had to say these words:

‘We do not eat peanut off of the bathroom floor.  That’s gross.  It’s really very disgusting. Um. Yeah.  We do not eat peanut butter off the bathroom floor.’

Oh my.

 

Shortly after the bell rang, and the Pledge of Allegiance ended, a friend came to me with ‘the look’.  Her stomach felt weird.  Weird like???  Weird like puke.

Grrrrrreeeeeeaaaaatttttttt.

Yeah.  Not a fan of body fluids.  Especially puke.  My children will tell you that I am the worst nurse in the world.  They know to call their dad if body fluids are involved.  (Incidentally, he made a rule that if you can drive a car, you can clean up puke soooo no calls these days.)

I asked my usual questions: Have you been to the bathroom? (hint #2) Did you have breakfast? Are you hungry? Have you had some water? Would you like a snack?

She’d been to the bathroom.  She’d had breakfast. Not hungry. Not interested in water or a snack.  OK.  Let’s just see how the day goes.

Later, she tells me, “Sooner or later I am gonna puke.”

And then later, “It’s coming.  It’s just a matter of time.”

And still later, “It’s close now.”

She wasn’t herself–she was grouchy and short with other friends.  She was defiant with me.  She was pale.  I knew she just didn’t feel good.

Finally, “It’s real, real close now.” By this time, it’s 2:25.  We have an hour of school left. She thought seeing the nurse would be for the best at this point.  So I sent her.  She rested for 15 minutes, returned to the room with a message from the nurse:
“Welp. Nurse Jessie says it looks like I am going to live.  I don’t how she knew, but she did.  So I am back!”

Good golly.  I would have saved myself TONS of drama if I had sent her at 8:45 this morning for this diagnosis.

Lesson learned.

Tomorrow will be better.