Sometimes when kids have hair-brained ideas like; "I want to get rid of my little brother.", "I think aliens are living in my attic", "It smells like nachos and earwax in here". I usually say something non-committal like, "You're parents have the final say" or "If that's what you think" sometimes a well placed, "We'll see..." is sufficient to get them off my back.
A girl, we will call her Candace for her high pitched voice and histrionics (Shout out to Phineas and Ferb), asked if she could bring her pet turtle into school. On Monday I said, "We'll see...". On Tuesday I said, "I don't think that is a good idea..." On Wednesday I said, "I'm pretty sure we won't have time for show and tell, you're not in kindergarten anymore..." On Thursday I said, "You will have to talk to your parents because I don't think they would want you to bring it in." Apparently her wheedling caused her parents to do what most parent would do in that situation...cave like a house of cards in a hurricane.
This morning she showed up with a baby turtle about the size of an oreo in an open cottage cheese container. His name is Cookie coincidentally enough. She brought him in and then the 10 minutes of calming and refocusing to breakfast started. I corralled the turtle onto a shelf and the children to their desks to eat the cured turkey roll-up and fruit juice. I knew it would be annoying...I didn't realize that she would ask me every 90 seconds if "Now is when I get to show the class my turtle." After about 30 minutes I was going to say something that was neither helpful or kind (the two ways we gauge our words in my class). I let her do a little blip about it and then had a Q and A session. I repeatedly warned the kids that they could look with their eyes and not with their fingers and gave an impromptu soap-box lecture about the fragility of amphibians and reptiles and how they gauge the planet's health which is why we cannot put our grimy little 7-year old fingers in the turtle water...not to mention salmonella. Only one kid got their digits in the turtle poo water.
After the cottage cheese container had been carefully taken to each row on the carpet, I took the container back and as I put it back on the shelf I noticed that it's eyes were closed and and it wasn't moving even a little bit. I tried to not go into natural overreaction mode...like I sometimes do. I decided that it probably was going to die anyway and that it wasn't a visit to my room that killed it.
After about an hour, I took another look in hopes that it had perked up/resurrected. Still no movement, still no open eyes, still dirty turtle poo water, still uneaten turtle pellet, still a dead turtle. I decided now was the time to start softening the blow of a death in the classroom...I started with something innocuous like, "So how long have you had this turtle?" then went to"Are you really attached to it?" then I threw in "Raising turtles is really hard, some don't make it out of turtlehood." I didn't want her to blame herself for its death so I added "Some turtles die for no reason at all, it doesn't mean that they wanted to die but it was just their time to go to the happy turtle pond in the sky." I'm not sure these were direct quotes but I started rambling in more and more desperate ways in hopes that she wouldn't blame me for killing her beloved pet.
When it was time to switch classes for the afternoon, I took a deep breath. Got the cottage cheese container off the shelf. Took another deep breath and prepared myself for the dreaded question that I knew was coming which would sound something like, "Hey, Ms. A, why isn't my turtle moving?"
I looked down and in a glorious moment I made eye contact with that tiny little reptile. This turtle that I had been mourning all day had been revived! It was alive! I was not the turtle kiss of death!
After a day of fretting about this stupid turtle I have found my backbone and the next time a kid asks me about bringing their pet, I will firmly say ,"No."
You Live. You Learn. You grow a pair and stand up to a 7 year old.
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