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!
Tales from a Nursery Worker 