{"id":641,"date":"2008-11-08T13:20:38","date_gmt":"2008-11-08T18:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/?p=641"},"modified":"2008-11-08T13:20:38","modified_gmt":"2008-11-08T18:20:38","slug":"ill-take-the-bad-with-the-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/?p=641","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;ll take the bad with the good&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>McCanless always surprises me.  I&#8217;ve learned to expect the unexpected with her and from time to time I learn from her spontaneity and her spunk.  Mary Clare taught me to savor life, McCanless <em>reminds<\/em> me to.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve mentioned that she loves to hang out with my 8th graders, and every morning during homeroom, she has the opportunity.  I get to school around 7:45 am on a good day.  She has about 15 minutes with my students until I take her (drag her) over to her building.  Lately, my students and McCanless have been playing hide-and-seek.  She was hiding under my desk at my feet when my headmaster came in to chat with me.  As I was looking up at him, McCanless shouted at him (his feet), &#8220;Na-Na-Na Boo Boo, you can&#8217;t get me.&#8221;  and knocked his shoe with a balled-up fist.  I quickly smiled at him and began to explain.  He chuckled as I began to drag McCanless out from under my desk PRAYING that she would at least apologize, or smile, or sing&#8230;anything to recover!  She didn&#8217;t, of course.  She didn&#8217;t flinch.  She wasn&#8217;t shocked.  She wasn&#8217;t scared. She said, &#8220;Hey, you&#8217;re not an 8th grader!&#8221; and ran over to find her pals.<\/p>\n<p>I was certainly embarrassed of that little minor incident and I tried to &#8220;not sweat it,&#8221; but I certainly couldn&#8217;t get it off of my mind.  McCanless has a mind of her own and is certainly strong willed.  Each day, I get glimpses of others in the grocery store\/playground\/school of those who I can FEEL thinking, &#8220;If my child were saying that to me&#8230;.&#8221; or &#8220;I would never let a 4-year-old say those things to me.&#8221;  &#8220;Why would anyone give a 4-year-old an option, anyway.&#8221;  UGGHH!  I get so frustrated.  I know she is a fantastically wonderful, creative free spirit, but I wish others did too!<\/p>\n<p>I was thinking this way for a couple of days, and she did it again.  McCanless threw me for a loop.  We had a SCISA teacher&#8217;s conference in Orangeburg yesterday.   As I walked around the convention center walking by booths I also noticed the artwork submitted for judging.  I knew our art teacher submitted a few and I was glancing at the winners trying to find work from our students.  Another teacher from THA saw me and asked if I saw McCanless&#8217; art?  What?  I had no idea!  McCanless&#8217; art was submitted in the 4K\/5K division and was given a ribbon.  This category wasn&#8217;t judged, but hers was only one of about 15 in that category on display out of over 100 SCISA schools.  I was so proud of her at that moment!   Several other teachers came up to admire her painting and I thought my heart (and my head) would explode with pride.  I wanted to say, &#8220;Na-Na-Na Boo Boo,&#8221; but of course, I didn&#8217;t!!<\/p>\n<p>My little wonderful, sassy-mouth artist, Mommy is so very proud of you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>McCanless always surprises me. I&#8217;ve learned to expect the unexpected with her and from time to time I learn from her spontaneity and her spunk. Mary Clare taught me to savor life, McCanless reminds me to. I&#8217;ve mentioned that she loves to hang out with my 8th graders, and every morning during homeroom, she has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.babypennington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}