January 1 – Daniel and Zoe

Today, my fellow worker was Marie’s daughter Sara. The children were Daniel and Zoe.

When I came into the room today, it was empty of both workers and children. This didn’t surprise me too much, because it’s still the holiday season and people are on vacation. I had seen Daniel’s family driving in anyways, so I knew we would at least have him. Sara soon joined me in the room, and we waiting for the kids.

Daniel came in sullenly, something I was a little unaccustomed to because he was normally already in the room when I came in during second service. He sat down and played with a truck, and then Zoe came in throwing a fit. Sarah tried to entertain her, although I knew it was pointless because Zoe was set on having a tantrum and wasn’t about to be distracted. Eventually she calmed down, but only after we turned on Lil K, a TV show-like program geared towards younger kids. Afterwards, she named the toy giraffe “GiraffeGiraffe”, put it on my head, took it off and put a toy truck on my head, and then took it off and told me about her penguin PillowPet named Bob.

After snacks, Zoe was trying to tell me that she wanted to play with something. She can be a little difficult to understand, and it took several times of her repeating it for me to get that she wanted to “play in the balls”. Get your mind out of the gutter, if that’s where it is. We have another room in the nursery that we call the playroom that has bigger toys and a homemade ball pit. I asked Marie if we could take the kids over there, and she said yes.

Zoe’s interest didn’t stay in the ball pit very long. She and Daniel were very soon scooting around on these scooter things, which consisted of a lot of bumping into each other, falling off, laughing, and squealing. They did that until they decided to throw around the bigger balls from the ball pit. This worked fine until Zoe’s sister came to pick her up and Zoe refused to give up the orange ball she was holding. Eventually we got her to give it up, and then Daniel’s father came to pick him up.

Today was pretty uneventful. Over and out!

September 18

There will be no update today because I just had an allergic reaction to something and developed a rash. It may or may not be contagious, but better safe than sorry, y’know? Especially with little kids.

If the rash has gone away by this afternoon, I will go to Cubbies for which I am an LIT (Leader In Training) and I may post an update about that. I’m hoping it will have gone away, because I already missed the first week of AWANAS – last week – for my aunt’s memorial service.

Please pray for my friend who lives in Bastrop where they are (or were) experiencing very bad wildfires. She says her house and family is fine, but houses around her aren’t. Please also pray for my half-sister who is pregnant but experiencing a lot of stress right now.

September 4 – Daniel, Nadia, Jaycee, Taylor, and Brittany

Today, my fellow workers were Katherine’s sister Elizabeth, Mrs. Flock, and her daughter Shannon, who is in the same grade as Elizabeth. The children were Daniel, Nadia, a girl named Brittany, and twins Jaycee and Taylor.

When Elizabeth and I first came into the room, there was only Nadia and the worker from the first service, who then left. We were in the room with just us and Nadia for at least ten minutes, which was odd because the general rule is that you need an adult in the room. Nadia seemed pretty wary of me – not giving me a hug when I asked, not answering my questions, looking back and forth from the door to me when I was talking to her. The assistant nursery coordinator asked if Nadia had seen me since I had gotten my hair dyed – I’m naturally sort of blondish and my hair is dyed dark brown temporarily – and I said yes, she had. For whatever reason she was just unsure about me at the beginning.

Nadia settled down and then Daniel came in. Elizabeth was very excited for him to be there for some reason, but, as usual, he seemed pretty “meh” about the whole thing. I guess he settled down or something – I have a gap in my memory banks there.

Mrs. Flock came in, along with Shannon, who had been hanging around outside the door, waiting for her mother. They were shortly followed by Brittany and Jaycee & Taylor. All three seemed to be younger than the others, probably recently turned two or a little under two.

And now for the brain farts to begin!

At least for the beginning, Jaycee and Taylor seemed pretty content with sitting on the rocking toys. Pretty quickly, Daniel said he wanted to play with blocks, so the build-towers-knock-them-down-and-start-over-again cycle began. Elizabeth built with Daniel and I built with Nadia, who joined in. Our playing techniques were different – Daniel handed blocks to Elizabeth who built the tower efficiently, whereas I let Nadia put the blocks where she wanted and then I straightened them. Her towers were just one block stacked on top of the other and thus fell down faster than Daniel’s. Except when she or Daniel knocked down his tower first.

Brittany seemed a little awkward at first, but after that she seemed like a pretty happy little girl. At one point, I was inside one of those playhouses – it was wooden and bigger than the normal plastic ones – with Nadia, and Brittany came in with a toy toolbox and tools. She sat down on the floor, looked around with a smile on her face, and said “House.” This was very shortly after Nadia told me that the house was for her and me only, nobody else. She freaked out a little when Brittany came in, but I just told her we needed to share the house and she was okay.

Somewhere along the line, Elizabeth and Shannon ended up laying on the floor in the middle of the room. Daniel was standing beside them, a little unsure about what he was supposed to do. I told him to wake them up, and he kept standing there. Then I told them that he had to tickle them to wake them up. He was intrigued by this idea and proceeded to tickled them both. I think Brittany may have joined in, but  I can’t remember for a fact.

Random tidbits: When I asked her, Taylor told me she didn’t like being hugged or tickled, but she did like being kissed. I asked her if I could kiss her and she said yes. Jaycee told me she didn’t like being hugged, kissed, or tickled. I tickled her anyways.
Right at the end of the service, Daniel told me he was hungry, and then something about animal crackers. It took some convincing that his mother would be there soon and feed him for him to calm down about it.
Nadia said she had to use the potty, but really didn’t.
Nadia and Brittany got pulled around in the little red wagon they have in the room there.
Brittany was so excited to see her mother she stood up and started running towards the door before I had both shoes on her. I had to put the other shoe on her while she was standing up. It was difficult.

Over and out!

July 31–Daniel, Zoe, and Nadia

Late post. Expect that. Let’s see if I can dig up all my memories from a week ago, which will be difficult considering my short-term memory is all but nonfunctional. (Not really. That’s an exaggeration. It’s just really poor.)

Today, my fellow workers were Katherine’s sister Elizabeth and Daniel’s parents. The children were Daniel, Zoe, and Nadia.

Because I have such poor memory, I will just post various smidgens about each child that I can remember.

 

Daniel – He was a MUCH different person than normal with his parents there. Very talkative and energetic. I asked him if his mom was pretty, and he said yes. Then I asked him if his dad was pretty. He thought about it for a few seconds and then nodded. Also told me his brother’s names are Ian and Brother.

Zoe – Pretty much her normal self today. Had painted toenails that she gladly showed off to us. She said her mother did them.

Nadia – Also normal. I’m thinking that there was something notable that she did, but I can’t remember it right now.

 

A more detailed post of today will be coming up next.

Greetings, Earthlings.

Hello, viewers who appear to have found my blog somehow. As far as you know, my name is Nursery Girl. I’m a teenager living in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, who happens to volunteer in her church’s nursery on every 1st, 3rd, and 5th Sunday of the month. I work with the one- and two-year-olds, which can be quite interesting, so I created this blog specifically to tell stories about what happens on what I call my “nursery days”. They would just get ignored if I put them on Facebook. A recurring cast of characters is as follows, although they won’t be in every post: (Also, these are not their real names, to protect identities)

 

Marie – The nursery coordinator. Has three children and one on the way. Her oldest is my age and the youngest is 3.

Erica – A fellow worker, several years older than me. Works on the 1st Sundays. Older sister is the assistant nursery manager, and she is personally acquainted with many of the kids and their families.

Katherine – A fellow worker, several years older than me. Works on the 3rd Sundays, often with her younger sister Elizabeth, who is two years younger than me.

Daniel – One of the kids, probably 2. At the beginning of the class he is very introverted, responding positively to only Erica when she’s in there. Answers “no” to anything you say or tell him. Tends to open up towards the end of class. The youngest in a family of 3 boys.

Zoe – One of the kids, probably 2. Very smart and not afraid to admit it. When asked questions about colors or numbers of things, will shout out the answer. Even when it wasn’t her who was asked. Knows the numbers 1-10 in Spanish, although not in order. The youngest in a family of 6, all boys except for Zoe and one other.

Nadia – One of the kids, probably 2. Very friendly and energetic. Both the tallest and youngest child in the class. Will answer “yes” to any yes or no question you ask her and will answer “red” if you ask her for the color of something. Her best friend is her three-year-old sister Bailey. The youngest in a family of 4, two sisters and a brother.

Fred and George – These are my two six-week-old kittens. I’m not sure why they would get a mention, but I might have to comment on how cute they are. And yes, Fred and George are their real names. Unless you ask my sister, because then they’re Brutus and Caesar.

 

As you can see, we’re running a little short on kids at the moment. At least 5 women at the church are pregnant, however, one woman has an 11-week-old girl, and there are a couple of crawlers in the baby class.

My first “real” post will be up next Sunday, July 31. Look for it then!