SOME Differences between teaching 4th and 6th graders

The number of times a week I:
leave the room for a mere 2 minutes and come back to a circus of chaos,
fix a stapler jam,
de-clog the pencil sharpener,
make multiple students stop and clean out their desk to find something,
have a student cry,
have a student have to call home because of "illness" or because of forgetting something,
have to take left jackets and lunch boxes to the lost and found,
have to wipe nasty finger prints off the group table,
have to give reminders about looking at the missing assignment lists

The number of times a day I have to:
hear, "I can't find my pencil",
sharpen a pencil for someone,
say, "sit down, please"/"have a seat"/"stay in your seat"/"don't get up right now",
watch a kid fall out of their chair,
hear, "I'm out of bathroom passes, but can I go to the bathroom?",
stand and wait for long amounts of seconds for everyone to be quiet and pay attention,
hear, "Miss Young...",
be interrupted in the 5 minutes I sit at my desk to accomplish something by at least 3 students forming a line,
say "Go ask someone who was listening",
give reminders about raising hands and not calling out (that's about once a minute),
look out into the sea of kids who should be listening to me or to another student/speaker and instead see:
staring into space
chairs being used as jungle gyms
legs up on the desk
chewing on pencils
picking at skin or clothes
putting arms inside of shirts
pencils being simulated as guns
erasers being eaten
erasers being crumbled into little pieces
licking desks
rulers down the pants (honestly)

Of course I am constantly combating these things (and sometimes trying not to laugh out loud)...I don't just let them happen. But, it's exhausting! 11 more days, 66 more hours...but who's counting