Birthday Bug.

I knew that today would be different, and the energy flowing in our classroom today couldn't have agreed more with that statement. Not only was it St. Patrick's Day, but it was also one of our classmate's birthdays. The latter event was clearly the most prominent. The excitement to his birthday has been building up for weeks. I assume it started when mom started making preparations for his first big boy sleepover party. Since then, every morning he would greet me, his classmates, and their parents with the exact number of days till his birthday. Many more times throughout the day he would repeatedly share this not so new information. This then caused all his friends to run home and tell their parents again, as if they hadn't already heard. That series of events has been on repeat for at least three weeks, so I knew today had to be big.

Enjoying the silence in my classroom moments before the first jumping bean arrived, I heard a faint but clear voice proclaiming, "Today's my birthday!" coming from outside. I quickly got up ready to eagerly greet him at the door, and as I opened I made sure I was the first one to speak, "Guess what?!" I quickly asked him hoping to throw him off from his ongoing birthday excitement. I didn't trick him. "It's my birthday!" he shouted back. Maybe I acted a little too excited with the initial welcome, but I couldn't hold it in. I was happy because I knew he was.

The birthday bug hit the whole class today as it seemed to be on everybody's mind. My class didn't seem to care all that much about St. Patrick's Day. When asking questions like, "Why is today special?" all they could answer is "Daniel's birthday!" This question happened to be sandwiched between a lesson about St. Patrick's Day, but that didn't matter to them. Journal entries were about him, St. Patrick writing turned into writing about him, and he ended up getting "compliments" from over half the class. Today was his day. Can't wait till Friday, as that birthday bug will be staying around for another friend's birthday.