Lets play charades

When I was little my grandpa would ask me if my jaw ever got tired. I was young and didn't really get what he meant so then he would tell me that as much as he liked hearing about "how Joey had stolen the jelly beans from David and made him cry and then the teacher said that was not nice becauseniceboysdon'tsteal..." he actually called to talk to my mom.

Life hasn't changed much now except I get to talk about how Marcus got into a fight with Miriam in my class in the first five minutes of the period on a Friday and I was really mad becauseniceboysdon'thit. Then I lost my voice.

If you don't know how hard it is to teach a room full of 12-year-olds with no voice, let me tell you.

It's REALLY FREAKING HARD.

I was out from school on Wednesday because my body went into shut down mode and fever mode and lets swell my throat shut mode. I basically slept the entire day and when I woke up I realized I had no voice. Nothing. No talking. Nada. Barely an audible whisper.

This is hard on many levels because I'm a very social person and because sometimes I have trouble with silence. I found myself singing in my head, clapping my hands and snapping my fingers throughout the day just to fill the air with something. The amazing amount of mocking I received at bible study that night should have been indication of how a day at school would go with no voice. Should have thought better.

Since I was generally feeling okay (besides not being able to swallow anything solid) and my kids are taking their stupid TAKS test in something like nine days I went back to school on Thursday with no voice. This was, arguably, not a good idea.

My first period is an okay group. Sometimes they're a little rowdy and my voice often comes in handy. When the kids discovered I couldn't talk they took a good bit of time mocking me and then proceeded to be generally confused about what to do. Come on. We have a routine. Granted, we don't have a routine just in case Miss Thompson loses her voice, but we do have a routine. I elected Leonardo as my translator and whispered instructions to him. He decided that the appropriate thing to do with the whispered instructions would be to translate them into Spanish for the rest of the class. Hi, Leonardo, I speak Spanish. Miss Thompson did not just say "I can't talk today so you get to have a party and do whatever you want." GositdownbeforeIhurtyou.

After that I pretty much texted my co-teacher every five minutes to say "hey, I don't care what kind of minor melt-down one of the other SPED students is having I CAN'T DO THIS WITHOUT YOU" and mimed signals for read and write and stop it before I lose my mind. It went pretty okay.

Pre-AP mocked me too. But they were moderately concerned that I would be gone again this week and not let them read The Outsiders with the sub. Yes, I want to know if Johnny lives too kids.

By Yearbook I pretty much just pointed at the computers and didn't bother whispering. I didn't know you could get lighted headed from whispering, but oh you can.

I decided by the end of the day that I my body, throat and head hurt too much to do the same thing tomorrow. My kids are not going to miraculously pass their tests if I come in and whisper to them on a Friday. So never mind. I stayed home and clapped to myself.

Because nicegirlsdon'twhisper.