What are the odds?

We are learning the -am word family this week (jam, ham, clam, etc) and a little sweety yelled out, "DAM!" He was trying to get under my skin but I drew a picture of a beaver and river and I must have used the word 'dam' 19 times just to prove it was okay to say 'dam' in school. They were shocked and amazed and now it's their favorite word and use it at every possible moment. Man I wish I were a fly on the wall around the dinner table in some of those houses! "Mom, Miss Rose taught us the word 'dam' today." Once again, I'm teacher of the year.


At library center a kid brought up a magazine that showed a beaver and a 'lodge.' I then showed the lodge/dam to the class and used the word 'dam' 12 more times.


I had a faculty meeting after school about interventions for kids (Side note: here is my strategy for intervention, "Hi Mr./Mrs. ____, your kid is special. Like special ed special.") Anyway, these types of trainings typically last 2 hours and are painful. I had a phone interview with the CFO of our school district today at 5pm and I was afraid the training would run late and I was quite nervous to speak with the CFO. Needless to say, he lives for talking to kindergarten teachers seeing as how I completely understand zero-balanced budgeting, a 500+ million dollar budget, GFOA, and the relationship between the private and governmental sectors relating to a school district. Excuse me, do what? Precisely my thoughts. BUT...I had to press on because my paper is due in two short days and this phone interview was all I could think about towards the end of the day. I get to the intervention training and the counselor has a power point up that just brought everything into the light of humor. It said, "Have you hugged a beaver today?" and had a picture of Buc-ee.


What are the odds that I would encounter beavers and dams so many times in one day? That is why I love teaching.


I have NO IDEA what Buc-ee's and the beaver have to do with intervention training. It was basically just comical relief since we hate the trainings and the counselor thought it would make us smile to have a "beaver as our training mascot."


Something inside told me that posting the bumper sticker of "Have you hugged a beaver today?" outside your window when you are an elementary school counselor is just not right. I don't know about you, but I get the giggles when I hear the word 'beaver.' I giggle harder when I hear, "Have you hugged a beaver today?"