Pants optional

One of my little dudes spent almost all of fourth block with his pants around his ankles today.

So, the kids here are 'babied.' Most of them have at least one yaya (nanny.) They seldom have to do anything on their own. They don't tie their shoes, take lids off their drinks, pick out their clothes, pull up their pants etc... on their own. There is generally a grown up nearby to take care of those tasks for them.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard my little ones calling "Mrs Quattlebaum...Mrs Quattlebaum...Help me!" from the bathroom.

I've had one student pee his pants and one poop his pants.

This most recent story began with my student coming up to me with his fingers crossed (that's our class sign that they need to use the restroom.) No words are needed, but he came up and said he needed pee at the beginning of fourth block...as I was beginning the lesson. I sent him along reminding him that I don't need to know details. About two minutes later he walked across the room with his pants undone and bunched around his armpits saying 'poop! poop!' I asked if he pooped his pants or if he needed to poop. He said he needed to, so I sent him back to the bathroom again...only to hear him calling my name five minutes later. When I walked back there a few little guys followed me. We discovered that he was going with the door open. he then said 'bug! bug!' I told him to go anyway...and that I really don't want anything to do with his dirty business. He still wouldn't sit back down. So, I told one of the guys who had gone into the bathroom with him (it's a single stall) to kill it. It was already dead...so we all got out and I closed the door. I went back to teaching and a couple minutes later he came out with his pants around his ankles. He began to wash his hands...which is good...but his pants were down. I told him to pull his pants up. He said 'I can't." I asked him to please try. He tried for a few minutes. It was towards the end of the day and one of the little girl's grandpa walked by and saw through the window what was going on. I told the little guy to take off his shoes, right his pants and put them on. When I came back over to check on him he was putting them on inside out. I mentioned that fact and he took them off again to turn them rightside out. This took quite some time. He finally got them on about 2 minutes before the end of the day and asked me to zip and button them for him.

I can't tell you how bewildering this experience was for me. He's actually one of the smartest kids in the class. It was peculiar indeed.