That’s right, it’s Child Care Month in BC and next Thursday is CHILD CARE PROVIDER APPRECIATION DAY. Am I going to print out this proclamation out and stick it up on the wall in the hopes that my clients give me cards and flowers and maybe some bottles of wine? Yes. Yes I am. They have to, it’s BY COMMAND.
What I’m going to do right now, though, is celebrate Child Care Month by COMPLAINING ABOUT WORK.
*
Seriously, this job is driving me crazy. Usually it’s the drag of crushing paperwork every month or neurotic, irritating parents, but this week it’s the kids themselves that are getting on my each and every nerve. LET’S DISCUSS (and yes, I’m mean and a terrible person, etc. God. I’m nice TO THEIR FACES, what more do you want?):
Baby M
She is SO NAUGHTY. When she’s not safely contained in a highchair/stroller/playpen she is misbehaving, and it’s not just baby-doesn’t-know-any-better misbehaving, it’s willful disobedience. She waits until I’m distracted by one of the other kids or a parent and makes a break down the hall to the bedrooms (all of which are non-play areas) or, if we’re outside, heads straight for the stairs or front gate. She takes toys and books from the other kids constantly and yesterday I caught her beating my cat with a doll. It was a cloth doll, luckily, but she was still about one second away from getting her eyes scratched out by Claire.
“I do not approve of such shenanigans.”
And the thing is, she KNOWS she isn’t supposed to do these things, because otherwise why would she wait until my back was turned to do them? She’s so sneaky and I can never relax or sit down or play with the other kids because she requires CONSTANT VIGILANCE.
CT
He is a whiner. No, scratch that, he’s a Whiner with a capital W. In the last four hours he’s moaned to me eight times that he wishes his mom could pick him up. He bumped his elbow on the path outside and staggered around clutching it for twenty minutes making horrible groaning sounds. When he wants something to drink he goes “I’mmmmmmm thiiiiirrrrrrrrstyyyyyyyyyyy” and when I remind him to please ask me nicely he goes “Mayyyyyy I pleeeeeeeease haaaaaaave sooooooooooommmmmmmmmmme waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.” Once I finally ran out of patience so I asked him “Can you please try asking me without whining?” and he said “Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.”
Maybe some of this would help.
It’s aggravating. He’s also kind of a histrionic drama queen- last night when his grandma was picking him up he was running to get his lunch bag when he tripped and fell down and started screaming. No, scratch that, he was Screaming, with a capital S. I ran over because I thought maybe he’d hit his face on the cement path but when I got there he was clutching his knee. I pried his hands away, expecting to see a huge bloody mess, but there was nothing. NO. THING. It was literally the world’s most superficially skinned knee and he was still. screaming. Like, bloody murder screaming. Of course this was the exact moment all the other parents arrived to pick up their kids so I had to explain his non-injury to everyone else, and they were all like suuuuuuuuure you didn’t break that kid. Great.
B
I love B. Everyone loves B, she’s so cute and smart and funny. But. She’s developed these really weird phobias about plants. Like, flower petals and leaves.
Maybe this fine film really affected her.
There’s this overgrown bush beside the path and this morning a small branch with like three leaves on it was knocked into the stroller as we went past. It landed by B’s feet and she just started screaming and crying and thrashing around trying to get away from it. The same thing happened the other month when the cherry trees were in bloom- some petals drifted down and landed on her and she freaked out! No amount of explaining and demonstrating the harmlessness of these things calms her down. It’s really weird and kind of frustrating because um. THERE ARE TREES AND BUSHES AND FLOWERS EVERYWHERE.
So that’s that. Luckily the week is winding down nicely- today I have four daycare kids instead of the five I’ve had for the rest of the week, and tomorrow I’ll only have two, and then, hooray hooray, it’s the weekend again!
*don’t really call the cops, okay?