Say My Name
Thursday October 18, 2007 | 2 comments
Without meaning to do so, I have inadvertently turned into a blog delinquent, but I am trying to remedy the situation, so bear with me.
Tuesday was my day to sub at our church’s pre-school. It was going to be a different day because I was subbing with a new group of children. Well, new to me. Normally I spent my days in a classroom full of 12-24 month-olds, which I absolutely loved, but on Tuesday my children were going to be 3-4 years old.
I was anticipating a pretty easy day since I had stopped by this classroom to meet the children a couple of weeks earlier. I thought the transition would be easy. Besides, I was only there for one day, so I was sure I was set for an easy-breezy adventure.
Unfortunately, the easy-breezy part dropped off with the first roll of little tongues curving around my name. I knew right away that this day would be agonizingly long and that I would be wearing my name like a pair of uncomfortable shoes—too tight to contain me, too loose to snuggle me, too much of a necessity to discard.
I am sure I wasn’t thinking when I introduced myself as Ms. Olga. That’s a pretty difficult name to get a hold of even for adults. So, imagine a room-full of three year olds trying to pronounce it. Ms. Yolga! Ms. Yolda! And, my personal favorite, Ms. Yoga!
At first I tried to correct them, but quickly realized it was a lost cause. It would take us the whole day to even come close. I decided to jump ship and change my strategy. “You can call me Mrs. Smith,” I declared hoping this will fix the snafu.
To my utter surprise even Mrs. Smith didn’t really work. I watched my three year olds carefully and very deliberately attempting to call me just that, curving their little mouths into that mold. They were so sweet to watch and I didn’t mind when they produced the final version of my name, the one I would be wearing the rest of the day—Mrs. Sniff!
{ Speak Your Mind }
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Aren’t kid’s great? I just had a client who asked where’s Mrs. Crab and began to search my office? – thinking that Mr. Crab’s (from Sponge Bob) wife must live here, rather than that being my name. This child also called me a Santa-cologist instead of a psychologist. I thought it was adorable. Although a full day at a preschool would be a lot harder to take! Glad to hear your job is going great! I will continue to pray for you guys! Take care.
Kids are adorable. I am going back to the pre-school tomorrow and will try to get them to work on their ‘O’ sound. We’ll see what happens.