Tag: children

Little ears are listening

You don’t think they are listening, but they are 🙂

My daycare has always been run with deep breathing, patience, and a lot of time management. But to err is human, and occasionally, the deep breathing doesn’t work, patience wanes, and frustration rears its ugly head.

Never have I ever used foul language around the children, but I was very creative in voicing my despair/frustration, for example: “For the love of Michael Samson”, or “Firetruck”, and occasionally “Rotten Avocado”. Nothing offensive, or that could be misconstrued.

One day one of my children comes in with tears and a Mother that was stifling her laughter. I look at her in question, she says to me. “Do you listen to Michael Jackson around the kids?”. I look at her bewildered and respond, “He might come on the radio when we are playing outside. The kids like to dance in the grass, why do you ask?”

At this point she is laughing even harder and says, “Well Suzy just stumbled, hurt herself, and mutters under her breath, “For the love of Michael Jackson, Hee Hee!””. I couldn’t contain my laughter

Let them be little

Open yourself up to new ideas

One day my staff and I had decided we wanted to take the little ones to the public swimming pool. The children were excited and pumped up to use the waterslide. Had I done my due diligence, I would have discovered the pool policies would not allow our group in without written permission from each parent. Down heartened we decided to have our first water day at daycare instead, hoping it would be enough to brighten their spirits.

We pulled out our paddling pool, sprinkler, sunscreen, and put on their swimsuits. My heart hoped this change would suffice, and cloud their disappointment. As their joy began to expand and laughter began to overflow, there was one little one that came up to me and said, “But there is no waterslide”, she looked down and walked back to the sprinkler. My heart broke, I had forgotten that they had been excited about the waterslide. My mind raced trying to think of an alternative, it dawned on me how to create a little magic to their day.

Pulling the paddling pool over to the slide, positioning the sprinkler near it so it would get wet, creating our own outdoor water slide. Feeling proud of myself, we began to help the kids safely slide down into the paddling pool. Little children slide very fast, sliding past the pool and onto the grass. Grass that was slowly turning into mud. “Let them have fun”, I thought to myself, I will deal with the consequences later…….

Little muddy children stood in line waiting to get washed, dressed, and ready for lunch. So much mud! We decided to spray them down outside through their giggles. Outdoor swimsuit showers for all 🙂

Smiles across their faces, all with hungry bellies eagerly eating their lunches. My one little girl looked up from her plate, smiled, and said “This was the best day of my life” 🙂