Tales From the Playground: "Did You Wash Your Hands?"

Every four hours or so a sort of organized chaos takes place in my day care rooms – we all go to the bathroom.  A stampede of children rush the split bathrooms, and I stand in the middle to try and keep some sort of organization, safety, and health standards for the 20 or more kids all trying to pee simultaneously.  

Twenty or so times I repeat this conversation verbatim to each child –

“Did you go potty?”

The child then murmurs some sort of incoherent response that could be a yes, no, or an “I didn’t make it, there’s a load in my pants, but I’m not going to tell you that I’ll just suck it up and sit in my own poop for the rest of the day.”

“Did you wash your hands?”

Girls are usually a yes head nod, boys more often or not are a guilty yes head nod, meaning they are lying through their teeth and never even looked at the sink. In this case, I point to the sink and the boys trudge up onto the stool so they can reach the sink and sometimes even turn on the water.

“Did you use soap?”

Similar response from most girls, and the boys give me this look that says – “Why would we use this thing called soap? We don’t even know what that is. You are crazy.”

I point at the soap dispenser, and the boys begin squirting anywhere from one to five or as many handfuls of soap they can get before I notice and alert them that they probably have enough to bathe in.

Kids also do this weird thing where they will wash their hands clean of soap over and over because they are so entranced by their reflection in the mirror. I like to think I’m helping them overcome their young narcissism by re-directing them to the paper towels and repeating that they only need two paper towels.

You think you need more, kid? No thank you.

There’s one particular kid, who I will call Big Eyes for obvious reasons, who is about four or five. Every day he goes into the bathroom, and every day I watch him peek around the corner of the stalls, and then make a run for it back to the room. He is convinced that he can get away unseen without washing his hands. No such luck, Big Eyes, I know your sneaky and devious ways, and I am a college student. I am also six feet tall and can see from the bathrooms to the room, and consequently, you trying to escape. 

So I see Big Eyes, and it’s like a slow motion movie when he makes his run for the classroom.

Now, I don’t know much about football except that I love the Nebraska Huskers, but I do know what a tackle is. And Big Eyes doesn’t just get tackled, he gets owned.

I don’t even have to ask – “Did you wash your hands?”

I set him down, and he walks back to the sink.

And he washes those hands.

Tales From the Playground: "No Thank You"

Now that my life basically revolves around my jobs with children, I think the best way to continually write will be to write what I'm seeing and experiencing. Some of the stories are sad, but generally they are riddled with humor and heart-warming moments.
      Tales From the Playground:  "No Thank You"

Possibly the most useless thing we teach our children at day-care is to use “no thank you” as a defense mechanism.  If a child gets a toy stolen from them or is being provoked by another child, we tell them to say – “no thank you.”  Many a wailing child has come weeping with a complaint and we simply pat them on the head and send them back to their offender saying – “Just tell them no thank you.” The child then turns back in the general direction that they last saw the perpetrator and screams hysterically – “No thank you!” 

Personally, I think this whole “no thank you” business is absolutely ridiculous and one of the most useless things we teach our children. Let me tell you about a little boy I am going to call Dracula*. I use this name because he has two perfectly spiked vampire-like teeth, one on each side of his mouth. One day a part-timer comes up to a cluster of us carrying Dracula, who is sobbing, bright red in the face and clutching his head.  The part-timer explains that a group of older boys (Dracula is only two, maybe three) had cornered him on the playground and had knocked him to the ground and were kicking him in the head and face.  One of the teachers looks at Dracula and says – “Go tell him ‘no thank you,’ Dracula.”

So I suppose this is applicable in real life. Should you ever be dragged into an alley in sort of some gang fight and shoved to the ground and then are getting the shit kicked out of you, you’ll be okay if you know what to say.

Moral of the story: You don’t want the shit kicked out of you? Just say – “No thank you.”

What Am I Learning these Days?

Well, I just finished my first year of college. My first year of college is done. Wow…Where has my time gone? Already looking back, there are things I wish I had not done, but there are so many experiences I have had that I wouldn’t trade for the world. I have changed so much, and I feel like I am finally back on the road I’ve wanted so desperately to be back on -  I’m striving to learn and become the woman God wants me to be.

What exactly does that include for me these days? I guess that right now the best way I can explain it is through two passages in the Bible. The first is the ever-popular Proverbs 31 about being a Godly wife.  I want to be a woman like that – someone who works tirelessly, even though she has to be exhausted sometimes because she is the first awake and last asleep, and always puts others welfare and happiness in front of her own. There is no way I am ready to be a wife right now, but I want to be a woman like that all the time, including now while I am still young and unmarried.

The second passage is Galatians 5:22-23 about the fruits of the spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness. I want to be a woman who embodies those five characteristics so whole-heartedly that one or more of those words are words people who know me would use if asked to describe me.

For a few weeks I was pretty much blindly wandering through my Bible, mostly relying that through prayer God would tell me how to live my life, what to do and so on. My most recent epiphany was – Oh, Jesus already did that through His life on Earth, and that’s what I’m reading in the Bible! Don’t ask me why I didn’t fully grasp that before, but I didn’t.  That made the gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – so much more powerful for me because I actually understand the life application. Jesus lived a life as a role-model for everyone to follow, and I am constantly trying to learn, love, and live as much like His example as I can.

So how exactly will I be doing that? Primarily through three different areas of my life – My internship at CEDARS, my job at Christ Kids Child Care, and modeling Christ’s image to my two roommates – Frankie (Francesca) and Ariel.    Tomorrow I will have orientation for my internships. CEDARS is an organization that helps youth who are at-risk in the community.  I will probably be working in infant child development or with middle-school aged youth.  I began working at Christ Kids last week – it is essentially a day-care. So far I have been working with the 2-3 year olds and I absolutely love it.  Even having only worked there for a week so far, I will probably change my minor from women’s studies/GLBTQ studies to something more children/youth based.

Today my two roommates and I moved into our apartment, which was a monumental undertaking in itself.  We are getting along well, and I’m looking forward to this summer. I expect great and wonderful things – I’m sure God has some ideas I can’t even begin to come up with.

Hope everyone is almost to summer – let the good times begin!

http://www.cedars-kids.org/

http://www.christschools.org/Index.asp?PageID=3662