The adventure of fourth grade vaccinations

Yesterday was a day met with great trepidation by the students of PROMESA because, like kids everywhere, they generally hate shots. And the health department of San Jeronimo was scheduled to come yesterday and give mandatory hepatitis B vaccinations to all students who hadn't had them. Unfortunately for me, the fourth grade vaccinations just happened to be during English class, which fell during the last two periods of the day. Translation: the kids had all day to think about their impending vaccinations and let their stress level rise accordingly. Before English class, that was the hot topic of conversation and speculation. And then, just as we started saying the date, the nurse popped her head in and cheerfully announced that she was here to give vaccinations. Any concentration they had had for English class evaporated like water on a hot summer pavement.
The announcement was met with a mixture of tears, indifference, trepidation and bravery. I'm not really sure how much anyone really was concentrating on English, even though they were answering questions. The sight of their classmates coming back into the room holding cotton balls to vaccinated arms was just too enticing, nerve-wracking, and fascinatingly scary. And then, just that quickly, it was over. Finally, I thought, time to do some serious English class work!
This proved to be, however, nothing more than a fleeting dream. The level of relief in the wake of the vaccinations was seemingly just as great as the level of stress in the anticipation of them. Oh my goodness, I don't think I have ever heard that much laughter for that long in a classroom before in my life! They couldn't control themselves and even had me laughing.
I thought I'd impart a little humor into your life by sharing a few of the laugh moments...

Me: Okay, guys, I could understand before the vaccinations why you were all distracted and couldn't concentrate. But now they're over and you're still talking. I don't understand!
Magna: (raises her hand and when I call on her says, in all seriousness) Should I explain it to you?
At this point I lost it!

Andre: I think when they gave us the shot for hepatitis, they gave us a laughing shot too without us even realizing it!
And I lost it again...

For whatever reason, Ada Sol decided to drip a few drops of glue into Josua's hair. Josua raised his hand to ask for permission to go wash it out. As he was leaving, he commented "I'm going gray!", since the glue made his hair a whitish color.

Sometimes, I realized yesterday, you have a choice. You can be grumpy and frustrated, hanging on to your precious plans, and miss out on the joy or you can laugh along with everyone else and then work to get them under control and do part of what needs to be done. I think I can guess what Jesus would choose...