This is a cocky-little-dude.
You would be astonished at the volume of noise emitted by this tiny body! It is incongruous. (I bet the neighbors picture a fifteen pound, three foot tall rooster with a mic and a podium. Sorry neighbors.)
This is a kindergarten graduate, posing at the end of a very long, full, happy, face-painted, last day of school.
This is a behavior chart... a motivational device that tracks good and bad behavior, and is meant to inspire the participants to be polite, quiet, cooperative, adorable, precious... well, mostly polite and quite.
Maria's name is on the clip, and for the entire school year her name always stayed in either blue or green, which means that she was always polite and quiet in school. She never dropped down to yellow, and would have fainted, cried, fainted again, and gone straight to therapy if she were clipped in the red. (Personally, I found this system somewhat
However I feel about the chart, it became an obsession for Maria, and on her last day of school she came home and made a chart for home use, with a certain cocky-little-dude in mind. Her chart is similar, but not the same as the one at school. Depending on how Zoltar is behaving, the clip with his name, moves up and down (mostly down) the chart. The idea being that the shame and degradation of being noted for poor behavior will motivate him to improve himself, to rise above his inclinations and be a very good, very kind, very quiet rooster.
Wow!!!!!
Yes, at the top we have the highest level of acceptable and inspired behavior. This is like the Gold Medal of good behavior, the Pulitzer of quiet, the Noble for polite and courteous, the Big Smile of Well Done!
Zoltar has yet to achieve this level of honor and esteem, but you better believe he wants it. He wants it bad.
Yay!!!!
Here we have good behavior. It inspires a contented response, less actual smile, but still pleased with the level of goodness from the participant.
And here is where we find Zoltar, today.
Darn!!!
This is where it gets hilarious. Nothing like the actual chart in her classroom, thank goodness.
Uh-oh. Now you've done it. We are not happy. Somewhere along the way, you have blown it. It's not quite hopeless, yet, but clearly the participant is failing to keep it together.
Oh dear.
Come on!!
Desperate, crushed. Clearly a disappointing and unacceptable, a shocking event, or breach of protocol has transpired. And I love the expression... you can hear the indignation, the expectation that things could be, should be, better!
Zoltar's clip has been here, often.
Oh gosh! How do you recover from this?!
The once happy face, has lost all hope, is overcome with the gravity of the situation. Clearly someone is out of control... but by this point it is hard to tell who needs the time out, the student or the teacher.
This is why we have summer, people! So we can take time to diffuse, to breath deeply and come back ready to move our names up the chart! And maybe throughout our day we deserve time to be ourselves, get loud, shake things up, speak out ... not rude, just free to cut loose a bit, without shame.
There. That's better.
But this cocky-little-dude can't seem to rise above Come on!!!