Humility.

This week as been a very humbling week for me. I have had to apologize to a child when I did something wrong TWICE this week. I try very hard to be perfect and nice all the time, but I fail. A LOT. I wish that I was always on my "A-game" but the truth is that I feel like I am barely holding myself together sometimes! If Micah and I get out of the house showered and clothed and on time it has been a successful morning! Ha! Anyway, back to my apologies...

I have been subbing for a teacher on maternity leave on Tuesdays and in my 5th hour of dance classes that day I snapped at a student. I added choreography to a dance her teacher had started and she exclaimed, "Hey look! It goes with what we already have!" I replied, "Well duh!" I was trying to be funny, and I thought, "Well of course it goes with what you already have... that's why I added it!" I very quickly realized that I had probably hurt her feelings when she became very quiet. I pulled her aside about 2 minutes later and apologized for snapping at her. I also said that I definitely didn't need to phrase my acknowledgment of her comment in the way I had.

Today I taught the Kindergarten-3rd graders at church. There are two computers in the room that they have been able to play on before and after the teaching, but really, all they do is cause problems. This week the Director decided to unplug the computers until we can get some Christian computer games. After the teaching the kids were all playing and coloring and I look over and both computers were plugged in, turned on, and had kids playing on them. I used a very stern voice and said to the two boys, "you are not allowed to turn these computers. We are not playing on them right now." They both looked at me with wide-eyes and turned them right off. I felt SO bad. I realized that they didn't even know they weren't supposed to be on them. They thought they were just helping me by plugging them in and turning them on. I told them I was so sorry for using that kind of voice with them and that I understood that they were trying to help me. I thanked them for being great listeners and obedient when I asked them to turn off the computers.

This was definitely a reminder that I need to slow down. I teach SO much during the week that I feel like I am always in "teacher mode." I know that the kids that I'm working with at dance and at church get "teacher mode" from everyone else all week and I really don't want to have a corrective attitude all of the time. I hope the kids saw this as a learning experience too. Even though I am older than them my hope is that it was validating to them... or that these kids know that even though they are kids, when someone messes up they are worth an apology . No matter what their age is. I totally could have written off both of these instances as me having a a bad day or just making a poor choice of words, but I chose to apologize because I messed up.

I don't really know what the point of this whole ramble sesh was, but I really hate messing up. I also really hate trying to perfect so that all i do is worry about messing up.