I've resigned my position as teen adviser at our church for the foreseeable future.  Why?

That's your decision.

Is it:

A. I've been diagnosed with a heart condition and need to take a step back from my activities?

B. Emma decided to take an active role in our teen group and politely asked me to get the hell out?

C. Beerhound put his foot down and demanded that I spend more time at home with him?

You tell me.

I've taken this opportunity to move back to the 2nd/3rd grade room.  I started out teaching in that classroom when we first came to the church so it's like coming full circle.  Pink Princess is in 2nd  grade this year.  That makes it a bit more special.

Today, we talked about seeing what is beyond the obvious.  Not judging a book by it's cover.  What is meaningful to one person might not be meaningful to another.  We used dinosaurs and the discovery of fossils to explain those concepts.  I won't go into a full discourse of the lesson for you.  You're adults.  Connect the dots and if you can't, it's okay.  We're Unitarians.  We can connect a rose bush blooming in November to the absolute need for Bonnie to get her ass out and vote.  Oh, did I say Bonnie?  I meant, nah, let's keep it real.  I meant Bonnie.  Fucking 20 year olds, think they know e v e r y t h i n g.

We had story time.

We passed around some fossils that Christine, the other teacher, brought in.

The kids dug in little pots of dirt to see if they could find anything, which of course they did.  They found little dinosaurs.

We discovered that no one, not even the girls wanted the brontasaurus.  Little Foot isn't cool enough anymore.  Death and Destruction is the name of the game and Little Foot just isn't cutting it anymore.

We gave them wooden cut outs of dinosaurs to color however they wanted.  As Unitarians, we promote individuality, even it means a dinosaur that looks like he's been tye-dyed.  So 70's man.

And, we found out that all dinosaurs are named girl names, like Lily, or Fluffy, or Annie, or Annabelle.  Because all dinosaurs are girls.  If they weren't, we'd be forced to "draw their thingy" and no one wanted to do that.  Besides being a little gross, our class agreed they just didn't have the time or energy to put in the effort.

**Note: we did not bring up the topic! Are you kidding?  These kids do have parents, people.**

Even 2nd and 3rd graders are starting to get the meaning of "constantly overstated" and "highly over-rated".

Susan, who would never speak such nonsense about cowboys, wranglers, chaps and boots.