Thank God it's Friday!

What a day. The beginning of my work day, 7:00 AM, seems so long ago I can hardly remember it. Here are some of the things that happened today.

**The morning was already very busy before 9:00 when we got word that Linn Benton Community College was in lockdown because of a report of a man in a trench coat possibly concealing weapons. Staff and parents started calling the office asking what we knew. One parent called asking if what our plan was and if we were going into lockdown also. Soon we heard that they were evacuating. Our special ed teacher who had a professional day to go to various schools for transition meetings had children in daycare there, so someone called to tell her they needed to be picked up. She didn't answer her cell so I left a message and called the school where I thought she was and she soon called back, saying all her meetings for the day needed to be cancelled.

**Our administrators were behind closed doors, asking not to be disturbed.

**A problem student came to the office and started calling his mom, saying he was going home because his teacher yelled at him. I interrupted the meeting to inform our assistant principal, knowing he had a good rapport with the student. He was able to calm him down.

**I got a call from a teacher saying two boys had been observed sharing some pills at a drinking fountain, possibly vitamins. Not wanting to disturb our administrators again, my fellow secretary went down to get the boys and bring them to the office, returning with a packet of pills in her hand. (Pills of any kind are a big NO NO in school.) These two boys ended up spending the day in the office.

**A boy came down from PE asking for a bandaid, saying he had cut his arm falling on a PE locker. It was a fairly deep cut with blood running down his arm. I gritted my teeth, put some gloves on, and brought him to the next room to clean it for him. It didn't look that bad after I cleaned it and wasn't bleeding at all. I put some neosporin on a bandaid and managed to get the bandaid stuck to my gloves so had to start over with it. I finally had the bandaid on and asked him to step up to the sink to wash his hands because they were quite dirty. Suddenly his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground, crashing into the cabinet, the teacher mailboxes, and the garbage can on his way down. Inconveniently, this sink is in our workroom, and about six student aides were in there, gaping in horrified fascination. My fellow secretary heard my shriek of dismay from the hall and came rushing in. (Actually, I was told later there were three shrieks - one for each thing to child hit on his way down! Kind of embarrassing.) The boy came to and was briefly disoriented but remembered everything except being told to wash his hands. I ordered all the students out of the room at some point. My fellow secretary is very nurturing and stayed with him while I got a pillow and made him more comfortable on the floor because he felt dizzy when he sat up. I called his mother and she took way to long to get there. In the future, I will always make sure a student is seated when doing first aid. It really scared me.

**At 10:45, my fellow secretary had to leave the office for two hours for some family events.

**The subject at LBCC was located around 11:00. He was not carrying any weapons. I notified all the concerned family members at our school. People continued to call or come by the office to ask what was going on there.

**Another problem student was being sent home and was left sitting on a bench in the hall to wait for his mother. I was told to radio my assistant principal if he got up and left. Almost immediately, he got up and left. My AP would not answer his radio so I had to run over to the cafeteria to find him.

**At lunch time, a sixth grade boy who currently has to be escorted in the halls and spend lunch in the office wanted to go use the restroom. I had to tell him, sorry, you know you can't go in the hall alone, your escort will be here in five minutes. He started banging on things and ranting. He rapidly goes into meltdown mode, so once again I dashed over to the cafeteria to get our trusty assistant principal. He walked him to the restroom.

**Two more boys got sent to the office for kicking other boys in the restroom, along with a confiscated cell phone from one of them. They spent a good part of the afternoon in the office too.

**Some major conflicts about some changes for next year were causing visible tension and stress between key staff members, causing tension and stress for everyone working with them (including me!).

**I returned from a brief lunch break to find the office being covered by a very flustered 8th grade teacher. (I still don't understand why.) Chaos was reigning.

**Kids fnally went home. Teachers went home. Administrators went home. (The assistant principal looked a little frazzled.) My fellow secretary and I debriefed and agreed we would return with positive attitudes on Monday and try our hardest to make it a happy place to be. Things start going a little crazy this time of year. The school closes at 4:00. I was getting ready to leave at 4:10 to be sure I made it to Nick's last game on time, when three of our naughty 7th graders, including the one whose cell phone was confiscated, started banging on the front door. I knew that this boy's parent would need to pick up the phone, and 75% of the conversations I have had with the young man have involved him trying to argue with me. My fellow secretary and I agreed we would avoid what was sure to be and unpleasant confrontation and not acknowledge him. (He couldn't see us in the office.) I left out the side door and saw they had moved away from the front door so I hoped they were leaving. I got a call awhile later from my fellow secretary telling me they had returned and were banging and kicking the door so she and the custodian spoke to them. Just as we expected, he insisted he needed to pick up the phone and tried to argue with them. I felt bad that I had left without dealing with them first.

**Our boys lost their last game of the season, 4-0 but they played well. Nick was able to play catcher the whole game (after some limited playing the last few games because of knee issues) and threw out two runners to second. He actually jumped for joy after the first one! It warmed a mother's heart. Galen brought Brenden. Brenden isn't a baseball fan yet but he is very cute. How many three year olds do you know who would decline their grandpa's offer to buy them some candy, saying, "My mom says I've had enough candy!"

**We went out for pizza with the Rileys, who came over after the girls game just as ours was ending. The fathers got their teenagers in a contest to see who could find the ringtone made by the phones at CTU on the show 24. I started addressing graduation announcements when I got home, but I had to get on the computer to get my brother Mark's new address from an email. I decided to blog a little and got completely sidetracked. I'm going to go back to addressing envelopes now.

**If you made it all the way to the end of this, congratulations. I feel better for getting it all off my chest! TGIF!!!