Symphony of the cough

I came home with a screaming and pounding headache.  I believe my head could have filled in for a drummer of a rock band.  You know this type of headache…you try and lay down and your brain is pulsating onto the pillow.  You maybe try and drown out the pounding by listening to music, only to have your head now pound to the beat of music.  I’m not talking heavy metal music, just nice calm music.  And, your head is pulsating so bad and doesn’t know it should keep to the beat of the music, it marches to its own “drum.”  How appropriate.

The kindergarteners are starting their own type of music this week, which comes in the form of a cough.  It’s truly beautiful, the melodic tones of a cough.  High and low with a mixture of wetness, and you keep your fingers crossed that nothing flies into your eye as they perform.  But as all of us know, if you are in a band the song you are playing usually starts together.  Not the rhapsody of the kindergarten cough.  You see, instead of all starting together, they have to each have their own “solo.”  When one starts, then another joins from across the room, then another, etc. etc.  Let’s not forget the talented cougher who can crescendo as he or she coughs.  Starting very softly and gradually increasing in volume.  Since I love music, it is at this point I feel the need to stand on top of my desk and get out my baton to direct.  After all, if we are doing a concert let’s do it right.  As I direct, I point to each individual so they can each have a solo.  I make them crescendo and decrescendo and also have them perform short staccato coughs for added pleasure to the music.  Yes, such joy to hear the cough.

Okay, who am I kidding.  The coughing drives me INSANE!  One starts, etc. etc.  Oh and when you tell ONE to go ahead and get a drink before their head pops off from coughing and YOUR head explodes, here comes the symphony of coughs.  This of course could possibly turn into “drink fest 2011” if you let it. The phrase that pays?  “We weren’t born yesterday, people!”  I had one student come up to me after his solo and say, “umm, there is this weird thing in my mouth.”  Frightened he might possibly show me this weird thing in his mouth because they will show you whatever grossness they have, I say, “Go get a drink.”  Apparently water is not a cure because he came back and said, “I’m still weird.”  I could have said, “Why yes you are,” but I held back and told him to tell his mother about the weirdness.  Mothers love to hear all about any type of weirdness going on.

So I am sure the concert will continue tomorrow, but you know the truly amazing part of the symphony of the cough?  It magically disappears during recess.  J