It's a Toaster!

I may be single, but I have 155 kids...my Spanish students.
I may not have biological children...but today I got a toaster.
It's not a boy. Not a girl.
No.
It's a toaster!!!

So, today I said goodbye to 3 of my 6 Spanish classes. And after an entire semester of hard work and disciplining, I decided to bring my guitar to work, pop some popcorn and play a video of everything we've done in class.

It turned out to be a greater success than I had imagined. And a few of my students surprised me with their various gifts.

Zack with his kind and thoughtful note.
Carson, who lingered after school just to hear me play and sing one more song.
A handful of kids who told me thank you and that they'd miss me.
And then there was Bryen.

Bryen is the kid who makes strange faces at me while I'm explaining a task to the class. Bryen is the kid who draws a circle with a X through it on every white board in my room. (I erase them frequently). Bryen is the kid who invented "the game". (Basically if you think about the idea of "the game" or a game or the word combination "the game", then essentially you lose the game.) And mostly, Bryen is the kid who would blare this voice recording on the loudest setting of his speakers when we were in the computer lab that yelled, "It's a toaster!"

It happened twice.

It was because of this that all semester I would hear students from his class say this phrase at random moments ALL THE TIME. Giggles would follow ceremoniously. Then I started seeing this phrase written on my white board when I wasn't looking, or on homework assignments for me to read. This one time I made the mistake of handing them an assignment with an array of pictures of household items on them, including... you guessed it... A TOASTER! You can imagine what these papers were covered in when they were turned in to me: large circles and arrows pointing to the toaster, and that coined phrase, "It's a toaster!" in capitalized, bold letters.

So, as you can see, Bryen has made himself quite the celebrity in this one Spanish class. Sometimes when he raises his hand, I am afraid to call on him. You never know if he's going to contribute to the lesson or throw it off entirely. Well, after playing my first song today, up went Bryen's hand, and what did he say?

"I have something for you."

The next thing I see emerging from his backpack is a shiny, new toaster. He hands it to me. Next come bread, a butter knife and some jam. Laughing inside, I held up the gift, and surrendering said, "It's a toaster."