Daycare – Recipes from the Classroom

If you get squeamish when people start talking about bodily fluids, you should prepare yourself for this story. Three words, wash your hands, is something that you must do repeatedly throughout your time as a teacher.

Children are adorable beings walking, running, screaming with delight. They tell you the cutest stories and have amazing ways of perceiving the world. They also will do things that will make you want to purchase a hazmat suit to protect yourself from germs. Sometimes 911 is required and sometimes all that you need is a strong stomach, TLC for the person involved, Lysol wipes and a very long hot shower at the end of the day.

Being 5’8’’ meant that I had to bend down to be face to face with the children , and/or sit down on a chair/floor. When I worked as an assistant at the daycare, I got used to hearing myself mutter the words, “ What the – is that.” once I got home and was changing my clothes because there were mysterious particles on my pant legs or sleeves. Most of the time, it was craft materials transferred from the tiny hands of a child giving me a hug around my knees. However, sometimes the particles were items from a kids nose. Yes, boogers. Noses are very interesting holes for children. They are wonderful pockets of mystery. Be prepared to do more laundry and do not show up wearing your Gucci suit. Unless you like paying expensive dry cleaning bills.

Thomas, not his real name.

Today, Thomas has kept himself busy in the dress-up corner. Sometimes he is actively playing with other children and sometimes he appears to be curious about his face. I soon realise that Thomas is upset because he starts shaking his head and appears to be trying to get something out of his nose. The teacher asks him what is wrong, but he ignores her and continues to vigorously poke at his nose. We surmise that he has put something up his nose and now it is stuck in his sinus. The teacher calls for help and they proceed to move to first aid protocol. Call 911, call the parents and make sure that he remains calm. He is calm, but everyone else is moving at record speed to take care of his needs. While we wait someone considers using tweezers. Let me just stop you right there. In this scenario, I’m an assistant and following the directions of my superiors. However, you never, ever, ever, ever, ever, have I used enough evers, try to do medical procedures such as sticking tweezers up another kids nose. Now if it’s your own child and you want to do that and you think you can do it safely? No, I’m still going to stick with never ever. A mother recently shared how she got an item out of her daughters nose, by covering the unblocked nostril and blowing into her daughters mouth. It worked, but I would never perform anything like that on any child.

Back to Thomas; during all of the commotion and talk of tweezers, Thomas suddenly exclaims in a very snotty way, “ I poked it out I poked it out!” “ Look, I poked it out!” We can see that he is now holding a mucous covered blue crayon about the size of an AA battery. He is jubilant that he managed to solve the problem on his own, but he also wants to shared the crayon with everyone. Most of us are backing up quickly and putting our hands up to make it clear that we do not want to touch his crayon. Another staff has quickly put the crayon in a little baggie and Thomas is now in the main office to meet with his mom. His parents had been called and they have decided to take him home for the rest of the day. Once he has left, it is very noticeable to see everyone taking time to visit the washroom to wash their hands.

I guarantee that I will be sharing another story at some point in time to remind you to wash your hands.

A 3-year-old boy with limited knowledge of English has arrived at the doorway to the centre. He is very upset that his mother is leaving him and is crying unrelentingly. I feel so sorry for him because he cannot understand most of what we are saying to him. His mother walks with him to the main play area and tries to encourage him to go play with some of the toys, but he is presently clinging onto her skirt with a strong grip. I can see that his mother is worried about him, but she is also repeatedly looking at her watch. One of the teachers manages to get him away from his mom and picks him up, while his mother runs out the door. The teacher asks him if he wants to play and he responds by throwing his head back, so she lets him down to sit on the carpet. Fortunately, someone has closed the inner door; otherwise I think that he would run out to catch his mother. He proceeds to lie down on the floor, screaming and crying.

It is a very upsetting scene and I personally feel my stomach turn with knots of sympathy. The other teachers are now discussing whether they should call his mother back because he doesn’t appear to be settling and his crying appears to be getting louder. In fact, some of the other children are holding their ears. I decide to sit down near him and play with a toy car. I begin to crash a car into a block wall and I make lots of silly noises. A few of the other boys think that it is funny, and they are laughing. I do not look at the little boy, but continue to play.

Gradually the boy, who is still sobbing, sits down near me and proceeds to do the same thing with another car. I continue playing and smashing the car with lots of noise. The little boy stops crying and starts crashing his car into my car. I then pretend to cry like my car is sad and he begins to laugh. We repeat this process over and over until there are cars being crashed with laughing and pretend crying. Eventually, the other boys are playing with the new boy, so I remove myself from their play. They continued to play like this for another 25 minutes adding other toys and sound effects. I was now the observer, laughing when they laughed. These boys continued to play throughout the day and overtime, this young boy learned to say goodbye to mom and meet his new friends in a happy manner. I do not think that I saved the world. I played with a child who needed a friend. I did what I thought would work, remember, I wasn’t trained. I just did my job, got down on the floor to play and I smashed cars.

Category: Daycare

Wash Your Hands

Sit Down and Play