very small kid with very big brains

the kids were driving me crazy this morning. actually it was only about 5 or 6 of them out of 22 but they kept me running. one kid was CONSTANTLY coming up to me (usually while i was trying to talk with another kid) and going "excuse me, excuse me, excuse me...." until i finally talked to him. i told him that people like it better if you use their names instead of "excuse me" when you want to tell them something. the problem was he could never remember my name. i told him about a dozen times this morning and he still couldn't remember it-- but i'd rather have him come up to me and say "what's your name again" than "excuse me". it would be better if he actually had a good question to ask when he came up to me instead of one he hadn't even thought about before he asked it. he was pushing a cart on the tan bark (wood chips in north america) and he came up to me saying "excuse me..." and then asked "why is it bumpy here?" almost ALL of his questions were like that. i started asking him what he thought the answers were to his questions and he could usually give a decent reason for why things were the way they were. between him and a couple boys who kept hurting eachother just by playing to rough and another 2 kids who would throw tantrums everytime they didn't get things exactly their way i was ready to call in sick when i came home for lunch. the afternoon we have less kids and most of the stress-causing ones were gone so i actually got to sit with some of the kids and talk to them while they worked on stuff. one little tiny boy was playing with the big dinosaur figures and he started telling me which ones were which and then he was telling me how the bracheosaurus weighed more than 15 elephants and all this other stuff about it and which ones were carnivores and herbivores... it was amazing (the one he kept calling bracheosaurus, i've always thought was a brontosaurus but i looked at the name marked on the bottom and he's right). it was a good end to horrible start to the day.
also-- the kid that was driving me nuts with his questions did something really sweet for the other teacher. some kids broke a small tree we have growing out of a stump. she asked the kids at morning tea if they could come talk to her in secret if they know anything about it or if they did it and she told them she was very disappointed. while i was at lunch the kid who was driving me nuts apparently rolled a tire that we have in the yard over to the tree and propped it up on the tree so the tree would stand up again. then he carried over 2 large logs and put them at the base of the tyre to hold the tire up. he called sarah over (he never talks to her-- which i find surprising considering he doesn't shut up around me) and said "look, now you don't have to be disappointed anymore. i fixed the tree". he proabably didn't even have anything to do with the tree getting broken, unless he did it by accident cuz he's not a destructive kid.