"I Wuv You, Mrs.B!"

"Mama says if you love someone you should say it, right then, otherwise the moment just passes you by."

Javier tells me nearly every day that he loves me. 

This little guy spends a half day with our Special Day Teacher and then comes to my class, with an aide, for the afternoon.  He's very sweet and innocent, and also very egocentric.

When I say egocentric, I don't mean it in a way a woman would describe a self-centered, arrogant man.  Young children are described as "egocentric" because it's part of development.  Do you remember that tiny bit of time from a 100 years ago, when all that ever occurred to you, or mattered to you, was your own immediate satisfaction?  As kids age, and around about 6, they begin to realize the world is a pretty big place and they start to learn that it doesn't, actually, revolve around them (most kids anyway!).

Javier is different.  He is still in this stage.  When he wants to turn in his homework, it must be right now.  The other day, a fellow teacher handed me his homework folder and explained that Javier was outside the classroom door, unsuccessfully turning and pulling with all his might on the locked door, trying to get in.  Another kid would have figured out that I wasn't there and turn it in later.

He has a hard time with structure, so when he wants a drink and I tell him no, he throws a fit.  Before he had an aide, he used to sit and cut his word sort into a million pieces, which made it look like it had snowed under his desk.  I'd tell him to stop cutting his paper into a million pieces, so he'd yell, "OK!" and then happily continue on as if I never said anything.

His impulsivity simultaneously gets him in trouble and is the cutest thing about him.  I sometimes envy his ability to live life in the moment.  He loves to play in the sandbox and sometimes throwing sand at that girl right there seems like it would be really fun...and the look on his face as he throws it is one of pure joy.  The second a thought enters his mind, it's acted on with no thought to the consequences, which is something that will not make him happy, but will, conversely cause him to bellow and cry, as it involves being removed from his favorite thing to do.  I, on the other hand, usually consider the consequences to nearly everything I do.  Should I just not show up to work today and see what happens?  Hmmm....let's not and say we did.

I don't let him get away with stuff.  Nobody at school does.  There are consequences to everything he does, including when he does make the right choices.  Lately, his aide has been rewarding him with smiley faces when he raises his hand to speak.  But when he shouts out, he gets one crossed out.  The same goes for when he deliberately, and seemingly innocently, walks straight through someone else's castle made of blocks.  Hey, it's fun destroying stuff!

"Sowry!"  He shouts, and expects to walk away as if "sorry" fixes everything.  Sometimes as he's apologizing, he's walking toward his next victim, seemingly on a castle destroying rampage a l`a Godzilla, complete with his favorite toy airplane in his hand.  The subsequent "logical consequence" is dolled out, but it's lost on him and only serves to make him cry for the moment.  It's mostly to keep an atmosphere of fairness for the kids who've suffered because of him.

Just when I'm at the end of my rope, he does something so completely sweet, it brings tears to my eyes. 

One day this week, for no apparent reason, my whole class was suffering from spring fever and were very...let's say, enthusiastic.  No amount of jogging laps put a dent in this enthusiasm.  In the afternoon, I'd had enough of one boy's constant laughing and wiggliness (I know, how could I?), I was reprimanding him, "If you keep messing around and don't settle down to do your job, you will turn a card," Javier wants to tell me he loves me, and does so, at the same time I am saying those words, he's saying, "Mrs. B, I wuv you...,  Mrs. B!  I wuv you...," (apparently irritated at my slow response), "I WUV YOU MRS.B," and has taken a swatch of my hair and is twirling it gently between his fingers, as the rest of the class looks on.

Deeeeeeeep breath......

...smile...

..and say, "Thank you, Javier, I love you, too."