Just Doing My Thing!!!

So this summer I had the privilege to teach ESY....Extended School Year...aka...Summer School. It's been a great experience and has opened my eyes to my profession. Most of the kids who attend ESY are the hardest of the hard. They have all sorts of behaviors and are really severe special ed kids. Which is quite a bit different than what I deal with during the school year. I was paired up with another teacher and we had 3 aides with a class of 10 kids. Yeah, I know what you're thinking a 2:1 ratio??? Wow how easy... well it was a very busy class and we needed every single hand in that room. Almost all of the kids were autistic, ages 5-7, half of them were non-verbal and 4-5 of them were still in diapers. A few of these kids really grew on me and were darling, one little boy was hilarious and so imaginative. He was fascinated by knights, castles, and dragons etc. and would pretend and have random conversations with himself about all these things. One day we were doing our bathroom schedule before we took them outside for recess. Well, he went to the bathroom two different times. Once in the hallway bathrooms and once in the classroom bathroom. Then we walked outside. Another adorable child, aka our little runner, decided to take off and I went chasing after him. When I brought him back to the playground I looked over to see this first kiddo with his pants around his ankles going to the bathroom for the 3rd time! I just had to laugh and tried to gain some exposure as I walked over to talk to him. He looked at me so innocent and told me he was "just doing my thing" I tried to explain to him that's why we go to the bathroom BEFORE we come outside....anyways, I don't know how much he really understood. But I will forever have this visual image of a cute little behind, with pants around his ankles, in the corner of the playground "doing his thing".