I rarely blog about my job, but as my time there is limited and today was such an eventful one, I thought it might be good to document something about it. So...the day started off great. I was feeling good. No sickness, more energy...I was loving it. Then came lunch time. As we were herding the children inside from the playground, I was holding one child while holding the hand of another who is learning to walk. The "walker" (names omitted for obvious reasons) reached the table and decided to sit down. So I let go of his hand. But in mid-sit, he decided he would like to walk the extra step to the table. Needless to say, he pitched forward into the table and gave himself a shiner under his right eye. I tended to his injury and sat him down for lunch.
Lunch...one child had spaghetti and applesauce, another had rice and yogurt, another had yogurt and baby food and the cleanest lunch consisted of a child who was spoon fed cereal. Needless to say, it was a mess! Normally, not a problem. However, when we put one of the children down so he could play, we noticed mid-clean that he was smearing poop along the carpet as he crawled away. Beautiful. Tanisha, my co-worker tended to the child while I tried to wrestle children off the soiled carpet and table and clean it at the same time. Once the carpet was cleaned, the littlest member of our class who was watching the whole scenario unfold from his Boppy spit-up down the side of the Boppy...A LOT. So now I was wrestling children off of 3 spots in the room and trying to clean the newest mess. Tanisha was still tending to the diaper change. By this time, 4 of the 5 children were crying and Tanisha was finally able to finish the diaper change. She attacked the messy table while I finished the spit-up clean-up. And then I went to get the first child a change of clothing. By the time I got back (from across the room) the child that had spit-up had done so AGAIN...A LOT! I actually told children to keep their bodily fluids INSIDE their bodies for a minute!
In the end, everyone was crying and a Toddler Teacher actually had to come over to give us a hand. You would think the story stops here. Not so lucky.
We went for a walk to calm down and then came back to take a nap. Everything was going smoothly. Two children were still awake but resting quietly when Tanisha asked if she could leave 20 minutes early to clean herself from the earlier poop fiasco. "No problem", I said. Right. Five miunutes later, the youngest child starts crying. Okay, I can handle that. But then he starts screaming. And so does the other child who has not yet fallen asleep. And so does another child who HAD been asleep. Thereby waking the other two children...who had been asleep for 30 minutes. I ran to the door to get backup from next door...but one of the teachers was out of the room! Screaming continued. Finally, someone came to give me a hand after a couple minutes, but damage was done. The first screaming child feel asleep and was still sleeping when I left at 4:00. The child who hadn't fallen asleep yet, never did. And the last two to wake up to all the noise never went back to sleep.
All I can say is...I'm glad I left before the end of the day.
Twins you say?
6 comments:
My mother was recently telling me about when we were children and if she would come to pick us up from class/day care etc. and something was wrong/hurt/upset us (fill in the blank) her solution was "let's go get a drink." And no matter how aweful it was, the drink always did the trick. Abby, I think you deserved a drink break!
Here's the secret, Ab: don't be the kind of parent to the twins that I was to you. Read on:
If poop flies (and it will) at the same time that the spaghetti-os fly (and they will) at the same time that the phone is ringing (and it will - relentlessly), don't think to yourself, How can I handle all of this beautifully? Don't even think to yourself, How can I handle this? Just use the two arms and the two legs and the one brain that God gave you and let the chips fall where they may. Don't try to turn the two arms and the two legs into four arms and eight legs. Do what you can until you can't anymore and then stop. It's OK to stop. IT. IS. OK. TO. STOP.
I love you,
Mumsy Woo
Your day actually made twins sound fairly simple, Abby. Craziness happens and when it does, remember. . . if fifty years when all your babies are grown and having grandchildren of their own, you will give anything to have that crazy, poopy, spit-uppy day back with your babies back in your arms. . .anything just for another day when they were little. It's true and it's that perspective that keeps me happy and healthy. LOVE!
"Keep your body fluids inside of your bodies?!" HAHA!!!!
...well done, dear. Another potential classic phrase is born.
Well, bravo and ditto to each of these comments...Get that drink, there is wisdom in that. It stops that weird, anxiety loop and centers everything and it just works. Great advice.
Nancy is so right. Commit her comment to memory. Make it your mantra...it.is.ok.to.stop.......
And what Emmy said...over and over and over and over. Eli was a spitter upper...oy....he never complained about it, it just rolled up and out...he NEVER kept his body fluids to himself...EVAH...but he turned okay...and cute....and righteous...and he got the cute girl in school...so it worked out way good for him ;)
and again what Emmy said....I would take the "worst" day back in a heart beat....and smile all the way through it...
My mom told me once, shortly after Abby was born, Nancy, try not to hope for the next phase. When she can't walk, don't hope for the day when she can. When she can walk, don't hope for the day when she can make her own lunch.
Mom never said anything about not hoping for the day when they don't spit up anymore or the day when they finally stop pooping their pants. And while, OK, probably no one who's being REALLY honest can say that they MISS cleaning up dirty diapers, what you WILL miss is just the whole blur of it. You'll be almost 54 one day and you'll look back and most of it won't stick out in your memory. Oh, there will be spots and moments, but most of it will be a distant, faded blur. And you will cry, then, just a little tear or two. And you will MISS it, Abby. You will MISS it and, like the song says, You're gonna want this back. :)
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