I felt myself collapse at my desk at nap time, alas all the kiddaroos had fallen asleep. There is something very angel like about a child sleeping. They all seem so perfectly, pure, kind, gentle and sweet sound asleep. All their innocence and light shines through on their soft little adorable tiny faces. Wake them up before they want to get up and you will witness the opposite.
One of today's dilemma's-Due to the wastefulness of band aids, I am continuously telling my children ‘No blood, no band aid.’
It was one of those days, not unlike any other typical Monday actually, where the entire morning seemed like a race against time. Or maybe it was I who felt I was chasing after the kids. Oh yeah, that was it. I was either collecting off the floor, foam sticker backings used from our activity, that somehow ended up all over the classroom or picking up band aid wrappers from children who took the initiative to retrieve a band aid without permission, for an ouch that did not exist.
Children will spend an enormous amount of energy fabricating stories, pointing to areas of their body that are perfectly healthy trying desperately to convince you that they see blood and need a band aid. And, they get vehemently upset if you do not believe them. Most of us are aware that kids are known for showing their scars, scrapes and bruises and wanting to share them with every person they know or don’t know, it is their way of connecting. However; when these ouch areas are completely invisible to the naked eye, something needs to be done. In the beginning I used to not have a band aid limit. That didn’t last and neither did the band aids. After the school went through two boxes of Dora, an entire box of Sponge Bob and Barbie band aids within a six hour period, I realized I needed to create a new rule-that’s when no blood, no band aid became the mantra.
Besides feeling like I was a human vacuum sweeper all day, picking up tiny paper remnants all over the room, we also had three major juice spills and two soup spills at lunch. And even after mopping twice the floor was still sticky. So I could hear my every step and every child’s every step for a good part of the day. It took an extra rinse and clean that I had to do during nap time, to eliminate the stickiness.
This stickiness was in part because I have informally allowed parent’s to send their child with heat-up meals for lunch time, to make it easier on the them. This way they can send last night’s left over dinner, corn dog or pizza; this is not posted or written anywhere in the school’s handbook or brochure. In the past I’ve only had one or two parent’s who would take advantage of this, most parents send sandwiches-oh, but not this year. I don’t know quite what I was thinking. When most of the parent’s send heat-up meals I have to do three or more separate microwave sessions, which invariably can be a bit tedious and not everyone’s heat up is ready at the same time. It is workable and not really too much of an inconvenience; however what has become more of a problem is heating up soup; not working, people. I cannot tell you how many times I have spilled soup or the children have spilled on themselves or each other. We had four soup dishes today…whoopee. I’m going to have to reinstate a new policy-no soup for the troupes and send in the soup police.
Oh I would not want to forget to mention the highlight of the day; while I was in the middle of mopping up the various juice spills, the little destroyer was caught standing in the bathroom doorway with his pants down to his ankles grabbing an over abundance of paper towels, using it to wipe himself. Here is a lovely visual; his caca was dripping down his leg and he had a huge messy lump sitting at the bottom of his underwear, just wonderful. I got to assist him with wet wipes in cleaning up and changing into dry clean clothes, and somehow find the time to type up a bowel movement potty report for his parent’s.
On a happier note; other news-I got a new item for the center, an ‘as seen on TV’ toothpaste dispenser which in most ways is going to be way less time consuming and good in teaching the children about being self reliant. Obviously I am going to have to really monitor it in the beginning and do some major training, because just as I predicted, certain children thought this new device meant that they could brush their teeth every time they have the urge to move a body part, which is about every second. Only once a day after lunch kids, it is not a toy.
Some kids earned treats today for good behavior, yea! Did you know that laffy taffy makes kids really laugh? Taffy that turns your tongue a fun color such as green or blue causes instant giddy laughter in a preschooler. They could not get enough of exposing each others tongue to one another and laughing and staring at it in the mirror. Every time they have ever received a laffy taffy treat they all do this, as if they have never before seen a colored tongue, this will never get old to a child. Gotta love their childish enthusiasm.
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