A Shitty Day

***I thought long and hard about the title for this post, and I apologize for the vulgarity, but there just didn't seem to be another word that summed up the day so well. I'll try to keep the swearing to a minimum in the post***

After a later than usual night filled with more wine than I usually drink on a weeknight, I dragged myself out of bed this morning to face the day. It wasn't pretty. Grey and drizzly AGAIN. I swear it's been raining non-stop for about a month, and it sucks. I almost wish it were snowing. Almost. To make things better, I left my umbrella in Erik's bag last night, and forgot to retrieve it this morning.

The trip to work was surprisingly uneventful.

The school day got off to a bad start when the two-year old teacher told me that she was upset that I had had her kids colouring on Tuesday. They haven't learned how to colour yet. They're working up to it. They have to do it with her first. Great. There goes the mornings plans.

I had gotten cornered by a parent a couple of weeks ago who wanted to a presentation on South African animals in my class. I thought it sounded interesting, but told him to talk to the director first because I wasn't sure what the procedure was for this sort of thing. Well, it turns out that this is the craziest parent in the school, and I have obviously bitten off more than I could chew. Of course today was his first of three lessons that he will be doing with the three year olds. Of course having a change in their routine makes the kids even crazier than usual. Of course this parent has no idea how to keep the lesson moving. Of course the parent feels that it is necessary to give me teaching tips, and to tell me which kids to keep in separate groups (the kids he was speaking about are never in the same group for English. They've had English all year. The teachers figured out a long time ago that they shouldn't be together). Of course the five year old teacher (whose class is separated from mine by a folding wall) complains that the parent is very loud (he is).

It's Thursday, and I spend the whole day at the Nursery school, and eat lunch with the younger kids. Lunch sucks. Salty soup, mashed potatoes, and the most disgusting beef type meat you've ever seen. To top all that, one of the kids at my table decides to go to the bathroom in his pants (hence the title). Guess who gets to deal with it? It's not often that you wish that kids had peed their pants...

Anyway, we're up in the bathroom, with almost the entire school trying to go pee before naptime on two toilets. The kid has tights on, and insists that I help him get undressed (fair enough, he's three). Of course in the process of pulling off his pants, tights and gross underwear, the you-know-what gets smeared down the insides of both legs. Now all the other kids are pointing and talking about how "il a fait caca dans ses pantalons". So I start cleaning him up with the wipes that are sitting in the bathroom. On of the other teachers comes in to see what is taking so long, and tells me that the wipes that I am using are actually for CLEANING THE BATHROOM. Not for wiping caca off a three year old. So she goes and gets the baby wipes and clean pants and underwear, and we continue on with the process. About thirty minutes later the kid is cleaned up and ready to go.

It really didn't matter what else happened after that. It couldn't get any worse. Except that it was pouring rain when I left without my umbrella. And I missed my stop on the metro.

Tonight Erik and I get to carry our new oven back to the Darty to see if they can fix it (ten euros says they can't).

Then I'm going to bed.