The Zebra Life

Quotes from today!

Kid: *crying*

Me: What's wrong?

Kid: Mama

Me: I know you want mama, but she's not here yet. She'll be here soon.

Kid: *starts crying harder* Mama

Me: My dear, I do not control the rate at which your mother gets here, so I can't help with that.

Kid: *breaks down even more* Mama

Me: Is there something I can do to help you?

Kid: *snuffles* Ice

Me: *starts laughing* I like the thought bud, but I don't think booboo ice will help with emotional pain.

Kid: *runs over, arms up high, whining like something is wrong*

Me: *gets on kids level to hug* Oh love what's wrong?

Kid: *stops whining and points at counter* Nak

Me: *through laughter* s-snack? Bud I just washed my hands to get it. Give me a minute.

*kiddo then proceeds to stand right next to me the entire time I prepared snack, just staring up at the counter*

Me: *getting ready to head home*

Kid: *walks over on knees, hand up in the air*

Me: oh are you giving me a hive five goodbye? Here Hive Five!

Kid: *smiles, turns to the rest of class and starts waving* ba-bye

Me: *again, dying of laughter* oh are you going home with me? My dear I don't think your mom would like that

*the little dear proceeded to follow me to the door and then started crying when I walked out without her*

The more I've worked with my kids, the more I learn about how WEIRD they are. And it's hilarious (sometimes). I love them, but it completely catches my coworkers who don't work with them on a daily basis off guard.

Example:

Me: *quietly ripping up a bagel and cutting a banana into bite-sized pieces for breakfast*

Coworker: You know, your kids are older enough and the food is soft enough you would be able to give them breakfast as is. It would save you time during meals.

Me: Theoretically yes. But if I give these kids non cut up food, they will proceed to take the smallest nibbles you have ever seen instead of normal bites, and thats if they try.

Coworker: ...what?

Me: Yeah, it's like they don't understand how to take a bite of something unless it fits in their mouth entirely.

Coworker, starting to laugh: Seriously?

Me: Yeah. The last time I gave them something whole, some took tiny nibbles, and the others just stared at the food, occasionally poking it. This actually saves me time because they can actually eat more than a half inch of banana in thirty minutes.

This cause my coworker to just die of laughter for a solid minute.

Weather App: Sunset is at 7:14

Me, at 7:15, glaring at the sun: Then why are you still up!!!!

I adore my job, no matter how....gross and needlessly sharing my kids can be, but in the spirit of Valentine's day (happy Valentine's day BTW, all my kiddos were wearing pink and red, IT WAS SO CUTE!!!!) here is a noncomprehensive list of the terms of endearment I use with my kids.

Sure, that's only fifteen terms, but that's just the ones I can remember because they are the ones that come out most frequently. It is literally growing every single day. And I mean. Every. Single. Day. I just open my mouth when I go to address the kids, and see what comes out of my mouth. No forethought. Just... words.

Have I mentioned I love my job? Cause I love my job! I really really do. There is so many things about working at a daycare that I adore, many of which I will eventually share, but one of the most amusing ones in my opinion is learning what words you say a lot.

What do I mean? I'll tell you.

One year olds are learning how to language for the first time, and the best way to learn how to language, is through repetition. We use this to our benefit by choosing simple phrases to make our and our little friends lives easy. Example: "No" when someone is trying to take our toys, "Beep beep" when someone is in our way, and "please", "thank you", "more" and "all done" for fairly clear reasons. It's worked! Mostly. We have less issues with friends lashing out and hitting because of friends taking toys, and our kiddos are learning how to wait for others to move/move when in others way rather than just to push them aside.

Now here's where the funny thing is. If there are certain phrases you say a lot, whether you realize it or not, they will learn it! And repeat it! And these are not usually our simple phrases as above.

Today, I was doing our pre-lunch diaper changes, and my coteacher informed me that one of our friends had a stinky one for me. Yeah, it's natural and all, but that doesn't mean we like having to change them. So I responded, "Wonderful." Only for a little friend to just look up and go "Wonderful!" Only he's one, so it was more like "waundehdull". We started dying of laughter.

Another example, my coteacher asked me to check for someone's pacifier, and I responded "Absolutly" cause apparently that's my go to response, and one of our friends just went "ahsloolee".

Are these really mild? Yeah, cause neither of us are really the type of person to say anything not suitable for kid ears, but it's hilarious to just be talking and have a little one just parrot your words back at you.

ALRIGHT EVERYONE WE CAN GO HOME I HAVE COMPLETE PROOF NOW THAT ABOUT ADHD AND AUTISM BEING GENETIC NO MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT IT!!!!

I'm kidding, I'm kidding, but seriously, my mom's side of the family lives several states away, and quite a few of them... dont get along with each other as far as I'm aware, so I don't really know most of them. My mom does, cause, well, she grew up with them. Well, today, I had a convo with my mom about stuff that's happening on her side of family, and you'll never guess what she mentioned!! Turns out, her whole family has ADHD and is on the spectrum. The more she learns about how her ADHD and autism affect her, the more she realizes that the reason she thought all this was completely normal is because it is COMPLETELY NORMAL for her family. We're talking 40+ people all directly related that all had the same experiences.

Now, we've already had a realization like this when we figured out that literally every woman on this same side of this family has EDS, but I can't stop laughing at this. It makes SOOO much more sense why it took so long for anyone to look into a diagnosis for anything, cause everytime anyone started poking around at the possibility that we weren't "normal" by society standards, they just point out how there can't be anything "weird" with us since everyone else in the family is like that.

I can't tell if I'm just super emotional because I'm getting over being sick, or if I am just an emotional person, but I legit was fighting tears on the drive home from work today cause IM JUST SO PROUD OF MY KIDS!!!

Today was my first day back after being out for a week. Two separate bugs are sweeping through the center at the moment, and I was the only one of my coworkers who was unlucky enough to catch both at the exact same time. So my kids have had a week to grow, and usually, there isn't a lot of change in one week. BUT THESE KIDS DID SO GREAT AND IM SO PROUD OF THEM THAT IF I DONT TELL ABOUT IT I MIGHT PHYSICALLY BURST!!!!

1. One of our kiddos is a really sweet, generally gentle kid, but we have had a problem of him getting super aggressive. Granted, he almost never is the instigator, but he will start throwing hands the moment his buttons get pushed too hard. So, we've really started focusing on teaching him to use words when our friends encroach on our space, try to take our toys, etc. Last week, right before I got sick, was the first time he used his words before going to hit. It was super sweet and cute and I almost cried. I'll tell about that more in detail if interested, but TODAY!! TODAY HE SPENT THE WHOLE DAY LOUDLY SHOUTING NO AT HIS FRIENDS WHO WERE TRYING TO TAKE HIS TOYS!! AND HE DID IT MULTIPLE TIMES EACH TIME BEFORE EVEN TRYING TO HIT (by which time we were usually able to intervene).

2. One of our older ones (~18 months) is a really sweet player. He has older siblings, so this is to be expected, as younger siblings frequently learn a bit faster from watching their older siblings. Well, before I got sick, he would frequently come up to me and just pass a toy back and forth together. He'd try to do this with other friends, but would end up too upset that his friend wouldn't pass the toy back, so he doesn't do that as much anymore. Well, today, he came up to me as I was sitting on the floor with two little people, smacked them together a few times and then gave them to me. INSTEAD OF WAITING FOR ME TO TAKE MY TURN LIKE USUAL, He then turned, grabbed two animals and started smacking them together a bit. After about a minute, he turned back to me, gave me his toys and took mine and then went back to play! HE WAS A) SHOWING ME HOW TO PLAY, B) TAKING TURNS WITH MULTIPLE TOYS, AND C) ENGAGING IN PARALLEL PLAY WITH ME!!!!! NONE OF THOSE ARE USUALLY NOT SEEN UNTIL A FEW MONTHS AFTER TURNING 2!!!! AND!!!! AND!!! AND!!! He recognized that not all of his classmates are at his level and he was engaging in play with them in ways that wouldn't frustrate him. Like, he spent about 10 minutes playing chase and peekaboo and what not with one of our ~14 month olds.

3) For the two weeks before I got sick, I've consistently had a fight with one of our kiddos about washing hands. He loves washing his hands, so I don't know why it's been a fight, but he would refuse to wash his hands before and after eating. I'd have to physically bring him over to the sink and almost wrestle with him just to get him to cooperate. Again, he loves washing his hands. He'll be smiling and laughing the whole time, but I'd have to fight to get him to do so. Today? Some slight petulance and resistance, but no fight!!

I waited six days (two days church babysitting and four work shifts) to update just to get a wide survery of children's reactions to my boot, or my booboo shoe as I've been calling it so my little ones can understand it, and here are my favorite reactions.

1) A nine month old tried to lay on my boot and and than looked at me in utter betrayal when her "pillow" (ie. My boot) was not soft.

2) My boot got sat on, not by the kiddo I predicted would do it, but it still got sat on, and it took a little convincing to get her off me so that I could stand up.

3) A little one did in fact use my boot to pull themselves up in a standing position (again, not the one I predicted) and they were so fascinated by the felt lining my boot has they spent the next few minutes holding into the top of my boot playing with the lining.

4) One little dude could not comprend why I wasn't wearing matching shoes like everyone else, and would repeatedly come up to me and just go "A shoe!" While pointing at my boot, and then point at my other shoe and repeat "a shoe". He would then go around the room pointing out all the others in the room wearing matching shoes, and then comeback to me and repeat the process. It really felt like he was trying to say "what the heck are you doing Ms. Ace? Everyone else has matching shoes! Pull yourself together!"

5) One of our younger ones has yet to figure out how to feel a new object gently, so he got curious, ran up and hit my boot as hard as he could. I just went "Oh be careful bud. Ms. Ace has a big booboo on her foot, so she is wearing this booboo shoe to keep her safe." Bud froze for a moment staring at my shoe, before EXTREMELY slowly and gently poking my shoe with his finger. I've never seen this child move so slowly, gently and intentionally. It was very cute.

6) Upon seeing this interaction, one of our older ones loudly asked "CAN I POKEY???" Which had me dying.

7) Someone was fascinated by the velcro on my boot holding it all together and then tried to take the shoe off to investigate more.

8) I spent about 30 minutes with some of our preschoolers, and one of them saw my boot, froze, asked what happened, and then spent the rest of his time with me making sure none of his friends hurt Ms. Ace's booboo.

9) One of our two year olds tried to give me the ice pack she was using on her foot for a booboo to me for my foot.

And finally,

10) one of the little ones who I rarely see and usually avoids me cause they are shy spent all weekend telling their mom about how Ms. Ace has a booboo.

So, if yall don't know, which there is three (?) people who do, so probably not. I unwillingly tried to sled down my stairs without a sled (translation: I fell, but that's less fun), and got injured, so I haven't been at work for roughly the last two weeks. I go back on Wednesday, which I am very excited for, cause I REALLY miss my little ones.

The "problem"?

I have to wear a boot for a little to keep my ankle safe while it heals and to prevent more injury. Physically, I'll be fine working. I just have zero idea how one year olds are going to react to me being missing for two weeks, and then showing up with a boot the size of them. I can't wait to see how Wednesday will go.

When I first worked at a daycare, several years ago, there was a 1-2 year old that was one of the most mischievous, rambunctious kiddos we had. He was a little troublemaker but was just a cutiepie. I nicknamed him my little imp because he would make direct eye contact with you before immediately doing something he knew he wasn't supposed to be doing with a massive impish smile on his face. The reason why I called him MY little imp? Yeah, he was a little imp, but I was one of the few teachers he would listen to. He'd still push boundaries like all kids do, but when it came down to it, he'd listen. Many of the other teachers dismissed him. They'd dread having him in their class because he was rowdy and wouldn't listen. Not me, I loved it when I was placed with his class. Cause he was my little imp.

Well, reason why I mention this, we have a 1, almost 2 year old at my new daycare who, like my little imp, is a rambunctious, mischievous little child who doesn't want and usually chooses not to listen to anyone. BUT SOMEHOW I GOT HIM TO LISTEN TO ME YESTERDAY! He was doing something dangerous, I set a boundary (do it again and you will have to sit for a bit) and then enforced it when he did it again immediately afterwards. After his "punishment" (sitting on my lap for a minute or two, while I calmly talked to him about why we couldn't be doing what he was doing), he immediately did it again and all I had to do was say his name and he stopped that FOR THE REST OF THE DAY!!!! Still acted like an imp after that, but he did it safely (which I do not mind at all).

SO APPARENTLY I HAVE A WAY WITH IMPISH LITTLE KIDDOS!!!

Fun fact! Whenever I have to clean a babies nose from snot and boogies, I always like to tell them good survival instincts as they fight against my nose cleaning efforts. Why? For one, I want to try and make this not seem like a scary situation since they will inevitably freak out at me trying to help them breath. The second reason? Honestly, I feel the need to congratulate the fact that they are, for once, using survival instincts, a thing they frequently do NOT use at all.

Work today started off really great, and then ended kinda sucky.

I started in the baby room, which was absolutely amazing! Sure, one very hungry baby did try to nurse from my elbow and from various spots along my arms repeatedly, but that comes with the territory. Honestly, it was a blast playing and cuddling with those little ones!

Then, I was moved up to the three year old room. Easy! I've been there before. They're really good kids, if not a bit chaotic at times. And they already know me, so they are actually inclined to listen to me. Piece of cake. We then went outside to the playground, where we combined with the four year old room. And that was where things fell apart.

I've worked with kiddos for a while, since I was a preteen in fact. Kids are kids. They play, have spats, and inevitably, someone will get smacked or pushed, but it's all minor things that the kids then apologize for and move on. Heck, most of the truly intentional acts of harm I've seen are with the littler kiddos who really don't know better, so a stern talking too will usually straighten them out. I have never seen so many intentional acts of harm committed by kids against their playmates. I'm talking smacking, pushing so that they trip over the end of the slide, tackling, throughing sand and dirt at eachother and so much more. One kid even grabbed the hood of another kids jacket and choked him, and then when we went to scold him, he ran off to the top of the playground equipment, where he then shoved a kid by the neck from the top of our climbing wall. Both the victims in these scenarios where okay, mostly scared, but there were no injuries. The kids who were doing this stuff would just look us and then run away laughing as we tried to straighten them out.

A large portion of the real malicious stuff happened while I had a coteacher with me, so I let her handle the trouble makers while I comforted the victims or handled other situations, since they knew her and would at least remain in place while she was talking with them, but eventually we dropped down to only needing one teacher and she moved to the toddler side of the playground to help them out for a bit. What happened then? The kids who knew me behaved. I only had to say something once for them to do it. The kids who didn't know me and had already shown they were troublemakers? They would laugh at me and run away no matter what, even if they had just hurt another kid. It got so bad that one of the toddler teachers stepped over into the pre-k playground to intervene (even though she technically wasn't supposed to at all, since that then meant she wasn't able to properly supervise her kids, even though they still were being supervised) because the kiddos knew her. They listened to her because they knew she wasn't a teacher to mess around with.

After my coworker intervened, things went a lot better, as she was able to set most of them straight about listening to me as I am a teacher, and it didn't take too long for my coteacher to return, which then resulted in no more issues with any of the kids at all.

Today as a whole definitely showed that as a whole, I still have a lot to learn, and even though this was a really rough day, I still am looking forward to learning more and getting more experienced (and hopefully becoming more known among the kiddos).

I love working with tiny humans, but sometimes, I really forget that tiny humans don't know how to human, and therefore do things that I failed to even consider could happen.

Take what happened today during nap time for instance. Today, I was in one of our two year old rooms, and of the seven children there, only two were asleep. Somehow, we managed to keep the five awake children quiet so that the two nappers could continue their naps. Eventually, however, we had to give up because they got too restless. So, my coteacher started changing/taking them to the bathroom, while I cleaned the sleep mats, all of this happening pretty quietly so that our two sleeping friends could continue to sleep. Well, two of the ones waiting for their turn in the bathroom decided that they wanted to help me clean the mats, and they had a blast putting away our friends sleep stuff and then wiping the soap and water away from mat with a paper towel. It didn't take long before we finished the mats of all the ones awake, and they just looked at me and said, "more". Here's where I made my mistake. I responded, "There are no more! We have to wait for our friends to wake up before we can clean more." What I, for God knows what reason, expected to happen was that I then moved on to something else to distract them for the next 15-45ish minutes while our friends finished their naps. What actually happened? You probably guessed it! They ran right over to our sleeping friends and started doing everything in their power to wake them so that we could clean their mats. One even grabbed the mat underneath one of them and started pulling so that they could bring me the mat to clean it. I don't think I've ever regretted my words so fast. Those two poor kiddos were so tired the rest of the day because they did not get to have a full nap.

Want another instance? Sure! After nap and snack, we went outside to the playground. Our playground has a few cozy car/plastic four wheelers that the kiddos love to ride around in. These all have a back rest that someone could hold onto and push the car around. They are a hot commodity to our tiny humans. Well, two kiddos made a beeline to the same car, and as what happens, one got there before the other, and that friend was NOT having it. They absolutely broke down that they could not have that specific car. This was expected. This kiddo had already been having a day, and we kinda expected them to still be having a rough time. What wasn't expected? This kiddo grabbed the back handles of the car that our other friend was actively sitting on and yanked downwards on it so hard that they flipped both the car and their friend backwards onto themselves. Thankfully, I had already been trying to intervene, so I was able to catch the friend that was flipped backwards, meaning they were not hurt, just scared (and surprisingly? They kept ahold of the car throughout all of this), BUT STILL!!! I did NOT think a two year old was going to flip another two year old.

Today at my daycare, a one year old jerked awake in the middle nap time, pointed off into the distance at nothing, shouted MOEH WAS STER BIT, and then immediately fell back asleep. I have no idea what that means, but it was said with such fervor that I felt it needed to be shared.

AMAZING NEWS!! I HAVE BEEN CONSISTENTLY PLACED WITH THE ONE YEAR OLDS!!!!

It is amazing and chaotic and I absolutely adore every moment I'm with these little ones, even though I spent all of last week sick because of them. They are starting to recognize and trust me, so horray for that. I'm allowed by them to be with them and give them food and wake them up from nap and pretty much everything, which is so great and work is now becoming consistent.

All that being said! It is apparently illegal for me to change their diapers. Kiddos as a whole don't like diaper changes, but they don't general mind it in this room, as we have a set of stairs for them to climb up to the changing table, which they find fun and they enjoy the fact that they have a say in their diaper change. Me? Yeah, it's illegal. They're fine with me for the rest of the day, but they refuse to approach me at the changing table and start screaming and crying if I have to carrying them to the table.