What Do You Know About Marshmallows?

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I was having a "Full Freaky Friday". Yeah, that's what I call the day before a Full Moon. This really happened on Wednesday, but then my saying would lack alliteration and sound funny...

So, I had a parent filling in for my Assistant on Wed. She used to be a teacher herself and we worked together beautifully. I seem to have gotten the reputation of being "the messy teacher" and today was no exception. We were painting leave with fabric paints, pressing them onto t-shirts in a semi-circular pattern to make tails and bodies for turkey's. When that dried, we were going to paint the outside of their fists red and brown to make the turkeys head and waddle. At the other table we were coloring cornucopia's and cutting them out to put on our Thanksgiving Fest placemats. So for the time being we had 10 kids at one table once again. (oh, I have recently acquired another table to spread these guys out to give them some space)... basically a very cramped situation...and I don't know what it was like weatherwise where you live on Wed. but here it was 75 degrees and the school had the heat on!

So, we were hot, messy and sportin' some serious ADD behavior. No one was listening, everyone was doing whatever they wanted and whining "I can't do anymore." "I'm tired." "When are we going outside?" "I'm hungry".

Oye. It was also getting ready to storm so I changed our routine, which apparently also threw everyone off, and we went outside to play before the deluge of rain hit us.

Wednesday's are out Wacky Snack days. A parent brings in a special snack that has to do with the month's/week's theme. This one happened to be about our color: Brown and our shape: Square. Everyone came back in to a "messy" snack of graham crackers, marshmallow and chocolate. S'mores if you will.

Now, we are a peanut free class room. I have one little boy who is allergic to peanuts, eggs, strawberries, and just nuts in general. He also suffers from Eczema. He has Rice Krispie treats to eat when we have anything that might have eggs in it (ie. cake, cupcakes, cookies...etc.). He is also an only child and very young for his age. Whenever he doesn't want to do something he bursts into tears, screams for his Mom and throws the world's biggest temper tantrum.

This happens just about everyday.

Today was no exception.

We sat down for circle time and almost immediately he starts. "Mrs. Miller, my mouth hurts.

"Okay sweetie, why don't you go get a drink of water."
"Mrs. Miller, I want my Mommy!!"
And so it begins.

I managed to get the kids started on their projects and tried to take him out into the hall. He wasn't having it. I asked him everything under the sun... I even thought that maybe he was sick and he just couldn't express it. But there was nothing he ate that he hasn't had before. He didn't have any hives, his mouth was fine, he was red in all the normal places and certainly itching more from the heat, but all else was fine.

My director ended up taking him out of the room calming him down and bringing him back. He made his shirt, and when it was time to come sit and color, he started with the Mommy thing all over again.

I plopped him in the chair, he rolled out. I sat him outside the door, he got up and stood right behind me. All the while screaming at the top of his lungs he wanted his Mommy. I finally moved him over to the rug and told him to play puzzles, and left him screaming. I was not going to give him any more attention. I went on with our activity and after about 5 minutes he started to calm down.

Next thing I knew he was coughing, got up from the carpet and was standing right behind me...I turned around and he threw up ...just missed my shoes.

Great.

I continued to hold onto him while he puked his guts out. My helper for the day is a Sympathy Puker so she kept the kids while I cleaned up my friend and the floor. Thankfully his mom was in the parking lot and was able to come and take him. She then told me he had been to Chuck E Cheese for the first time the night before and that he was complaining before school of a belly ache.

I felt awful. Something still wasn't right. When I got home, I told my mom what had happened and then she asked about the marshmallow. Were they marshmallow's or marshmallow Fluff?? Huh?

Did you know marshmallow fluff is made with ...egg whites? Me neither and apparently, neither did this child's mother.

Not 10 minutes later, the mom called me with that exact question. And sure enough that was what made him sick. Okay so now I'm the world's worst teacher...or so I thought until the next day when I heard.....

"I want my Mommy!!!"

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