Last night was my final religion class. To commemorate the end of a magical year, I made superlatives for the kids (“Most likely to lead the class to mutiny”, “Most likely to notice that I am carrying a designer purse”, “Most likely to not be in his seat”) and passed them out with little bundles of Blow Pops. As part of the final class session, we were instructed to join the other classes at a prayer service in the church. It was there that I realized just how much I was going to miss my terrible children and their quirks.
As the priest proceeded down the church aisle in a hooded white robe, one girl leaned over to me and whispered scandalously, “He looks like he’s in the KKK.” A few minutes later, the priest began singing a song about the Virgin Mary, which happened to be the same song that the nuns “jazzed up” in the movie Sister Act. I figured that I would be the only one who caught the reference, considering that I was surrounded with thirteen and fourteen year-olds, but suddenly two of my kids started mimicking the harmonizing solos that the timid nun sings in the movie. I completely lost it and all of my kids followed suit, which resulted in an entire pew of disruptive, giggling miscreants, led by their shamelessly immature teacher.
Following the prayer service, there was a social in the church auditorium. My kids disappeared off to sit with their friends and left me to chat with the other teachers, but at the end, two of my young scofflaws came up and informed me that I needed to check my mailbox before leaving. When I did, I found two of the religion class textbooks I had tried to force them to take home with a note that said, “Lindsey – We thought you might like these as a present for tolerating us all year. [heart] Padraic and Kevin”
I am going to miss my little monsters.