I got permission to share about this particular kiddo and let me just say I am thrilled his Mom is still in touch. Back when I taught preschool, they had the type of family that could have been related to mine and I value that connection immensely. Very seriously, my Aidan was almost a Logan because of their middle son, and my all time favorite handful student. Anissa, I love you for allowing me to write this memory uncensored.
I would like to think that I am pretty causal with my language, but not to the trashy extreme. I can be taken to a company party. But I do use profanities. I may always have. I censor my words around the kids ( okay I try my best) and when I worked of course I bit my tongue. When I taught the youngins, I was a saint with it. But, I ALWAYS snickered inside my own head when a tiny person did a test run with a potty word in class, in earshot. That is normal for littles to flex the power of a bad word. This one particular boy had a full vocabulary well seasoned with a variety of swears. Logan had a rugged manly Daddy and a sweet sassy Momma. His older brother was often the more quiet of the two and I can recall the pre-tween angsty annoyance on his face at drop off and pick up. At that age though your little brother is supposed to be annoying and by birthright alone he was allowed to just be constantly unamused. I however, had a bit of a problem because I was amused daily. It was becoming more and more difficult to discipline the swearing because he really was spot on with use and context. When a little girl would come up and narc on him for cussing it got to the point that he was more put out than nervous that he had to take time away from play-doh to talk about it.
Girl: "Logan called me the B word"
Me: "Logan, you have to choose other words. You can't talk like that to your friends."
Logan: "Well she's being a bitch!"
Me: "What happened to make you so mad?"
Girl: "I wanted to talk-
Logan: {sighs and interrupts} "NO she is just being a stupid bitch ok!"
Me to the girl: "You can go play, I'll talk to him."
Logan sighs again because I am totally wasting his time.
Me to Logan: "Dude, you have got to quit with the swearing. Seriously"
Logan: "fine. But she is one."
I hate to say it but the girl was our class bossy pants and he pretty much left those girlies alone back then. So if she was all up in his space being a know-it-all she may truly have been being a little bitch. But that doesn't make it right. Killed me every single time though because his logic was pretty awesome for a four year old and often tough to argue. If I'm being honest I probably bargained and made deals and found a less offensive word as my teachings with him. So hard.
It might sound mean but he was not a mean child. Totally the opposite actually. He had a few best girlfriends who were the more tom-boy types, he had a super duper best friend that was his partner in crime fighting ( especially since Logie showed up in caped attire 3 out of 5 days a week for a while). And with a heart of gold he would chew out anyone messing with his people. He just sort of called it like he saw it. A sporty, rough and tumble, overly brave, slightly crazy-wild little pirate basically. Another little boy that I wanted to clone and have for my very own. In a LOT of ways I did get my way on this one. The talking is the only real difference and you know that I know what type of vocabulary Aidan would have if he did talk.
That brings me to my favorite crazy Logan memory.
Out on the playground and for the life of me I cannot remember what season it was but I do recall that I was wearing a light pink button down shirt with light heather grey slacks and dress flats. We had corporate folks coming to tour our classrooms and I was dressed way nicer than an average day. I even had my hair all cute. It was close to my lunch time and I had taken the class outside to the bigger playground equip with a massive climbing structure. As usual I grabbed my lunch someplace local and headed back into my class to do paperwork or planning or prep or something. And thank goodness because my assistant teacher runs inside in a panic flipping out about blood. I raced outside to find Logan looking for a place to hide like he was in trouble or something ( later I learned that kids commonly have this natural reaction in a trauma or crisis situation). He was gushing blood from his head and he looked angry. Without really thinking it over I ran over and scooped him up and brought the fitting kid inside a classroom to check him out. Sent my flailing panic stricken assistant to call Mom or an ambulance or our director or something, just get away. I know that is another natural reaction to trauma but I don;t find it helpful. I think it's because growing up with a mother who turned to blubbering mush at the sight of blood kind of got old.
Sitting with the super grumpy pissed off boy who wanted nothing more than to get away from me and go punch stuff, I turned him to face me. And he looked away. I turned his whole body to face me and I hugged him by force. Holding 700 paper towels to the top of his head and rocking him just a little. He slowly relaxed and then I felt him cry a little. Just a tiny bit. Such a tough guy. We had a quiet few moments that seemed like an hour and I just let him calm down and didn't say a word. My assistant came back much more centered and I had her trade places with the teacher outside that had seen the whole thing.
Apparently Logan had been winning at a game of chase when he lost a fight with the play structure. Running headlong into a bolt at full speed will in fact split a head open.
Another teacher came in to survey the situation while we waited for parents to arrive to take him no doubt to get stitches or staples. She looks at me and asks if I have been asking him questions to make sure he's ok. Turns to address him instead " What color is your shirt?". No response. " Logan honey what color is your shirt you have on?". Nothing. I wasn't worried because I have witnessed the freak out and calm down, but I wanted him to answer so I asked "Logie what color is your shirt honey?". "It's fucking blue" he said.
It was indeed fucking blue.
We sat for a little while longer and I tried not to chuckle at that. The day went on as normal for the rest of the kids and though he was bleeding through so many paper towels he sat up and we made small talk. "I got bwud on you shuwt" (did I mention he had the most incredibly cute r's as w's speech thing going on? I know right). He had in fact bled all over my shirt. Actually right through to my bra. Whatever. I didn't care. He was ok.
Scary yes. Super sweet and funny too though. Made me love his Mom even more because she was a rockstar about all of it too. I expected nothing less from her really because she in the medical field and level headed in general about how boys-will-be-boys. I hope to god I have half as much grace and smiles raising my one boy as she manages raising three now!!
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