3/27/11 – 9:02am

Still sitting in the living room at Canyonlands. Still waiting for the sun to do it’s job. Still reflecting on my time in Summit County. There is one post I always wanted to write, but never got around to, and that is one documenting all the funny things my kids have said. I probably can’t even remember a quarter of them. I can’t think of a single day that something hilarious was said that I should have written down. But here are some that I can remember:

“Want to go to the hot tub with me after ski school?” – many variations of this question were presented to me by several 4-year-old boys with a lot of game.

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Other instructor: “Let’s sing the beaver song!” *sings a song about beavers*

5-year-old boy, very confused: “That’s not the beaver song.”

Me: “What’s the beaver song then?”

Boy: “Never Say Never”

*Note – ‘Never Say Never’ is a song by Justin Bieber

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5-year-old girl: “I like girls better than boys”

Me: “Why’s that?”

Girl: “Because when I get in the pool with boys, I don’t like the way their boobies look.”

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A little boy had done nothing but cry and scream ‘Mama! Mama!’ for the past two hours. Upon his mother’s arrival, he stopped crying, looked at her for a second, then broke into tears and started screaming ‘Dada! Dada!’

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One of my girls asked me to put braids in her hair like I had. Afterwards, she couldn’t stop smiling.

Me: “You love you’re pretty new hair don’t you?”

Girl: “Yes. But actually it’s my same pretty hair, just in pretty new braids.”

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Other instructor to my kid (a 4-year old boy I had been teaching for a few days): “You better be nice to your teacher because I’m going to marry her some day.”

Boy (almost in tears): “No!!”

Me: “Oh no bud, what’s wrong?”

Boy: “Don’t do it! Don’t marry him!”

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Sitting outside the bathroom waiting for the rest of the class, one little girl had crawled into my arms and pretended to go to sleep. I knew she was faking, so I attempted to ‘wake her up’ by using her arms like a puppet and making it look like she was hitting herself while I repeated “Stop hitting yourself! Why are you doing that silly?” She thought it was hilarious, but a passerby commented to me and other bystanders in a very straight-forward sarcastic tone: “You are going to be a great mother some day.” He shook his head as he walked away. Some people have no sense of humor!

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One little boy named Tatum thought it was hilarious to call me ‘teacher-neacher.’ So I started calling him ‘Tatum-batum.’ Every time he called me teacher-neacher he would do it with this adorable little sway in his hips. And every time I called him tatum-batum he would laugh so hard he’d fall to the ground.

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One little boy came out of the bathroom with poop all over his hands. Another kid had pooped on the floor and he, as sweet as he was, had tried to clean it up. When I asked him what was on his hands he looked up at me with a great big smile and said very sincerely ‘Hot chocolate.”

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Our toilets at the teaching area were often the sight of comedy, as they were vault toilets rather than flush toilets and many of the kids had never used a bathroom like that. A lot of the kids were scared of it, because the wind often came through the vault and up out of the toilet making for a very cold sit. One little girl was so terrified that she ran out of the bathroom screaming and wouldn’t stop running. It took several instructors to catch up to her and take her down. When we told her we were going to ‘take a bubble ride’ (aka get on the gondola) to a nicer toilet, she misunderstood and started screaming and running  away again. We ended up having to send her home because she was inconsolable.

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Not all of the little kids were scared of the vault toilets though. One little girl came out exclaiming excitedly that ‘the toilet made my pee-pee cold!’ Another little boy couldn’t stop giggling while he told me how much fun it was to watch his pee-pee go all the way to the bottom.

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Me, consoling a crying little girl: “Has anyone ever told you how pretty you are?”

Girl, still crying: “Every day!”

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And my personal favorites:

“Miss Mariana, I love you.”

“You’re the best ski instructor ever!”

“Ski school is way better than regular school!”

Oh, if only I could remember the rest…

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This video came to be when one of my students insisted on being taped pretending to be Ripereroo, the Keystone mascot (a dog). My favorite part is at the end, when I pan over to another kid who clearly does not want to be on camera. It makes me crack up every time!