Trust

As a teacher of young children I have been on the receiving end of many gifts.  The most memorable gifts have been those that students have whipped up for me.  Sometimes you see it happening before your very eyes.  It is not uncommon for a posse of five year-olds to be snipping, gluing, folding and assembling elaborate paper structures for you as a token of their appreciation all the while saying “Don’t look over here!”  I have received many kite-like paper objects over the years, though none ever seem to be able to become airborne.   

Today brought yet another opportunity to be appreciated by a child in my class.  One bright eyed, six year old Kindergarten student bounced in this morning holding a shoe box.  The box had been papered with red construction paper and covered in Popsicle sticks.  He used extreme caution while hand delivering this creation to me. 

(By the way, when you turn six in Kindergarten it is almost like a right of passage.  Your five year old peers LONG for the day they turn six; so much so that they soon learn how to add increments to their age.  Once one child has said they are 5 ½ then everyone who is five isn’t just five any longer.  Nope. They are 5 ¾ or 5 –but almost 6, etc.)

..…Here he came with this box which made me instantly think of the ballot boxes that must have been used for gubernatorial races back in the day before electronic voting machines crashed the voting scene.  He placed it on my desk and said, “This is for you!” He flipped the lid on the box and there inside the box was a Ziploc ™ baggie with three mini Kit-Kat bars, a smashed Milky Way bar and what appeared to be loose tiny pebbles of various colors.  The pebbles, I learned, were gum!  What a treat, eh?  Through further examination (i.e. – This child confessed) I learned that these sweet treats were his left over Halloween candies.  (Do the math, people.  It is February 9^th today.)

Now, for a six year old to cough up their left over Halloween candy, or any candy for that matter, is monumental.  Kids don’t give up candy under any circumstances.  They could be sicker than sick from eating too much of it and they still covet it.  This was big!  This was a token of his appreciation.  I stood there realizing for whatever reason this kid thinks I am a God.  If he is giving me his stash of candy, I must be highly ranked on his “likeable” list.

It gets better.  There was what appeared to be a plastic champagne cup in the box too.  I quickly concluded that it must be left over from a New Year’s Eve bash that his parents surely hosted, though I don’t have any evidence to back that up.  This champagne cup was no ordinary plastic stemware!  Nope.  It has been Decoupaged with various colors of tissue paper.  Only he didn’t use Decoupage.  The tissue paper was Scotch ™ taped to the cup with meticulous care. It was a beaut!

But Wait! There’s more…  He then unveiled a hand made pillow that was in the shape of a Dreydl with his photo ironed on to the front of it. (Someone had been busy "crafting like crazy" at his house.)  This pillow was handed to me, but not released to me as I reached for it. He spoke very careful details and waited for me to nod as a gesture of accepting his stipulations before releasing the pillow to my care… “You can borrow this, but I will need it back in a few days.  You can keep the rest of the stuff.”…..  And there it was, TRUST; staring me directly in the face.  It is a bit of a privilege to be trusted. Not just with other people’s kids all day, but that someone so young would trust you with one of their most prized personal belongings. 

For whatever reason it was humbling to me…. for a moment that is….Until I heard, “I can’t get undone!” from across the room from a child who had managed to attempt taking their coat off with their backpack still on creating a tangled mess.  And so the day began...