Paulo's surprise

On Saturday I cashed in my babysitting surprise.  Way back in February Paulo's teacher offered himself up for babysitting at our school auction.  Paulo loves his teacher.   I knew I had to get it for him.  I loitered around that sheet throughout the evening vying for the privilege of having my son's favorite teacher spend an evening with him one on one and I won.  Cost me $70.00 but it was worth every penny.

Paulo knew he had a babysitter coming and it was driving him nuts that I wouldn't tell him who.  He asked if he could guess and if he guessed right I'd tell him, sure...no problem, guess away!  I knew there was not a chance he would say his teacher's name and I was right, he never did.  5:00 came and he arrived, quite promptly.  I hung back in the hall with the camera and let Paulo rip open the door.  He was stunned!  He started laughing, he had the biggest smile on his face and then he promptly tried to push ME out the door!  We did the responsible parent thing and gave him the low down, left the check for the pizza and took off for our sushi dinner. 

We didn't stay out too long, we left around 5:00 and we were back a little after 8:00.  As we were driving down our hill we saw them, walking back from the park carrying a football, a soccer ball and a frisbee.  Paulo was in heaven.  He had the undivided attention of a man that matters almost as much to him as I do and frankly he wasn't ready to let go.  So his teacher ever so patiently stayed.  Paulo taught him the finer points of different Pokemon characters, he climbed all over him and we all talked.  I finally told him it was time for bed, time to say goodbye only to hear him ask his teacher to read him a bedtime story, which he did-way to make a Momma melt.  It was such a sweet moment for my baby boy and one neither of us will forget.  Paulo told me how lucky we were that we'd won his teacher for the evening and asked if we have to win him again to have him come back. 

It's not every child that can say he truly loves his teacher, it's not every teacher that is lucky enough to be adored by their students and I feel so grateful that he was Paulo's teacher this year.  I know that having this wonderful man, this positive role model, in his classroom day in and day out is one of the reasons my son loves school as much as he does and for that I am forever grateful.