Full Heart

My heart is very full right now. I helped an unsteady grandma walk to the bleachers and as soon as we got to the bottom of the steps, ALL the male 7-8th graders (previously sitting to watch the game) IMMEDIATELY stood up to help the grandma up the stairs. Not only that, right after school got done, two of them took it upon themselves to clean all the windows in school. Wow. What fine young men we have at this school!

On the other hand, the 5-6th graders have some growing to do. This is the story of the great jersey drama...

The games tonight are co-ed and two of my students have the same number jersey. The boy wanted to wear his regular jersey because he likes his number and doesn't want to change. The problem is the extra jerseys are way too big for the girl. He wouldn't budge. Finally I held a 'trial' to make sure we got to the bottom of both sides. She didn't want to wear a different jersey because it was too big and would effect her playing. The only jersey in her size was a B squad jersey, so she'd have to switch to an A squad jersey for the second game. Hassle. If she kept the jersey on, she'd look different than the rest of the team. Not such a big deal as a lower grader, but kind of a big deal as an upper grader. So for all these reasons I sided with the girl; she should get to wear her regular jersey and the boy should wear the spare.

Well, he didn't want to accept that answer. He kept trying to find jerseys that worked for her, or other solutions (safety pins, changing jerseys between games, just wear the big one) but none of them worked. Except... ten minutes after the final verdict, he uncovered a jersey closer to her size in the bottom of the jersey tub. Now the playing field was even. They agreed to draw sticks and whoever I picked got to choose which jersey to wear. I drew his stick. Ugh. I was irritated about that. But fair is fair; they even shook hands on it before I drew.