Oh hi, week before winter break...BTW, you suck.

Sorry, but it's true.  Week-before-winter-break is WORSE than his little brother, two-days-before-thanksgiving-break, EQUALLY as ferocious as his half-sister week-before-spring-break, and NOT QUITE as god-awful as the mother of them all, last-week-of-school.

By all that I mean, breaks make kids LOSE IT.  Now, you might think this just means they are crazy/chatty/goofy/can't sit still for their lives...but you would be wrong.  It means all that...and MORE.  When breaks creep up, kids (through no fault of their own) lose EVERY ounce of self-control.  In every way. Case in point, my day from HELL:

Let me illustrate with some math...

Number of kids brought to tears today: 4 (see, I told you they lose it)

Number of referrals I had written before the morning bell: 2

Number of referrals I wrote later in the day: 3

Number of lunch detentions: 2

Number of kids held after school: 2

Number of those kids who decided they were going to run away through the school when kept after: 1

Number of minutes spent searching the school: 15

Number of houses the assistant principal walked to in an attempt to track down my runner: 1

Number of minutes of assistant principal's time wasted after I returned to my classroom and discovered that said runner had crept back in (and was sitting silently, doing his make up work, and refusing to talk to anyone): 30

Number of parent phone calls: 5

Number of parent phone calls during which I learned that one of my lovelies had told another student he was going to "rip his head off": 1

Number of years off my life today: who. even. knows...

It's a good thing I am already an avid hair-colorer.  These kids would be giving me some SERIOUS grays by now, let me tell you...

It will be a miracle if I survive the next three days...but the bigger miracle will be if all of THEM do!!!!!