God Bless Them Every One

Well, today was my first day of work at my new job for the Mother's Day Out program at church. All I can say is those two year olds kicked my butt. We had nine kids show up today and within five minutes seven of them were crying uncontrollably. That lasted about 45 minutes. There's only two of us teachers and we each only have two arms so there is no way we could hug, hold, pick up all seven of them at once. As soon as we had one calmed down and put them down to go to the next one, the calm one would start up again. It was utter chaos. Thankfully, the crying stopped as soon as we took them to the gym to play. Then the crying was replaced by running, laughing, and constantly trying to climb the stairs to get up on the stage.

Then came lunch. Nine little munchkins sitting at their little table eating everyone's food but their own. Seriously. Two year olds don't have that many boundaries. At the end of lunch there was literally food everywhere. On the floor, chairs, clothes, you name it. One little girl had gotten hold of her neighbor's juice box and squeezed it until all of the grape juice squirted out through the straw and all over her pretty little dress. Crazy.

I didn't even have a chance to finish my piece of pizza. Crazy. The kids are super cute but they are crazy. At nap time we had three who went to sleep and six who spent the hour alternately walking around the room, talking in their "outside" voices, trying to climb the cabinets, etc. One little cutie just kept walking around saying A,B,C,D for an hour. The kid knows her alphabet. I think the most heartbreaking and yet somehow funny moment of the day was when a little girl that I'll call "A" (who speaks NO English) was in the middle of a crying fit when I noticed she was pointing at her backpack. I thought, "who needs English? she obviously wants something from her backpack." So, I get it down for her, waiting for the moment of triumph when she will open it up and get out her stuffed puppy and be happy. Yeah, didn't happen. She immediately put her backpack on, marched over to the door, and tried to leave. Crazy.

The good news is that I got in a great workout. My thighs are so sore from kneeling, bending, and sitting on the floor all day long. There will be no running tonight, thank you two year olds!