Playing Opossum or If You Can't Beat the Math Play Dead

Kindergarten should not be scary, but when it is, it is good to have a few tricks up your sleeve.

Kadence loves nature and books, so when I began reading books to Kadence about opossums I did not realize that I was creating a potential nightmare for her teacher.

It all started when my wife, a librarian, brought home the potential devious picture book about seemingly cute opossums. After I read this book to Kadence it awakened in her a dangerous interest in the opossum. Soon it was an obsession; she needed more and more opossum books. At first it was fiction, which seemed harmless enough, then she went into the realm of nonfiction opossum books. Night after night we read opossum books. As her parents we should have seen it coming, but we did not. A week later we were completely blindsided by the news from her teacher.

Kadence's teacher solemnly told my wife what had happened after school in the privacy of her empty room. It happened in math class. It always happens in math class. For some reason, Kadence, at the age of five, had scissors in her hands during math class. Scissors and math together may seem innocent enough to an untrained eye, however, the combination is dangerous. If you have ever been in a math class, and my guess is that you have then you know how ultimately frustrating math can be. Mixing this math-induced-frustration with scissors is always going to be a bad idea. As Kadence sat in math class with a pair of scissors she began doing exactly what you would expect from a five year old in math class; she began to open and close them. At first, I am sure, the scissor slicing was passive, but as time went on and the numbers began getting more aggressive so did the scissor strokes. I am aware of how these math classes take place. At first it is all small numbers, innocent and friendly, but before you know it the numbers begin growing, and then they attack. Soon enough the scissors took on a mind of their own not only opening and closing, but they were also moving around in circles and perhaps even jabbing trying to counter attack.

The teacher did what any teacher would do. She asked her to stop, but it was too late. With all the numbers getting bigger and moving around trying to flank her, Kadence could not stop the scissors; it was her only defense. So when Kadence did not retreat with the first quiet "stop" from the teacher. The teacher had no choice but to move to the next strategy in a potentially dangerous situation; she yelled "STOP." Then it happened.

Kadence froze. She fell out of her chair, and she laid on the ground not moving a muscle. The scissors still clutched in her tiny hand.

When my wife came home after hearing the story and told me about it, I asked Kadence why she fell out of her desk and laid on the floor. She said, "It works for the opossum!"

The question remains, who was she more afraid of the teacher or the math?

Homeroom Story Number 12: Through the fence or I really loved that sweatshirt

I grew up on ten acres with a barn, a pond and horses. From early on in our family to be in Montana meant being good with a horse. One spring day, on a Saturday or Sunday, my brother and I were hanging out at our pond. When heading back to the house I decided to jump on my horse Jig, a thoroughbred, trained to race 7/8 of a mile. He was light brown with a white blaze and three white socks. I climbed on his back which in itself was a feat. I  grabbed a handful of hair on Jig’s main with both hands and jumped, climbed, clawed and finally swung my leg over his back. The feeling of being on a bareback horse is exhilarating. Gripping the dusty main, and smelling the unique horse smell, a mixture of horse hair, and dry spring dust that drifts up every time you move.

I kicked Jig a little to move him toward the house, which was about a quarter mile up a gentle green slope. My hands where loosely entwined in the horses mane. My legs just dangling at Jig’s side as he naturally walked toward the house. Then, all of a sudden, Jig began to gallop. I gripped his mane with earnest and squeezed my legs around his side. Leaning forward, putting my face in the horses mane as Jig rhythmically ran up the hill covering 20 feet with each stride. His hooves gently thudding the soft grass as my mind was whirling. Do I jump or wait for him to stop. I lowered my hands around his muscular neck as I thought about bailing and then thought better of it. He would stop sooner or later. He would stop but would he slow down. He seemed to be picking up the pace. His ears where stretched back and his nose was pushed forward, He thundered toward the fence, I thought will he jump it and as suddenly as he began he stopped. I slid of the front of his neck as inertia threw me into and through the fence. The barbed wire ripped my Minnesota twins sweatshirt clean of my body. I guess I had a ways to go to be a true Montanain.