As I told y'all I work with young children, at any moment the most unexpected things can happen. I have a couple of stories to tell you, if you don't want to hear them, then I'm warning you now, stop reading this ...
Okay, you have been warned...
First let me tell you about one particular Wednesday afternoon. It was a very shitty day, and here's the story:
At about 10:55 (lunch time for pre-schoolers) I hear my assistant screaming from the bathroom. I rush in there to see what havoc my beautiful little cherubs have caused to create such a frightful noise from my unsuspecting assistant. Well, by the time I got there, I see liquid sludge oozing down the walls, dripping from the ceiling, and a smell.....oh my god.....never have my olfactory nerves been so assaulted.
The children had to be taken care of, so I told them we were going to have a carpet picnic upstairs,
in the other teachers room. So there they were, 20 angelic creatures, carrying their plates of mashed potatoes and gravy up a flight and a half of stairs... (you recall the scene after the food fight in ANIMAL HOUSE? nuff said about that!) okay......
By now I have the very intelligent, very resourceful MANAGEMENT on the phone with me, and the thought is to flush the upstairs toilet, "just to see what happens". Ever the employee to do my boss's bidding, I go upstairs, flush the toilet, run downstairs, (side-stepping little piles of white
gluey mashed potatoes all the way down) to see if anything has happened in the bathroom. Lo and behold, there before my very eyes I see Old Faithful, only the scenic view of Yellowstone Park has been disguised as the girls bathroom at Quincy Head Start!!! The toilet, the sink, the boys toilet and sink, the kitchen sink, all geysering brown foul sludge at the same time...in unison! What a sight, what a life....
It appears that the city of Quincy has scheduled it's yearly sewer cleaning for that Wednesday. Whilst unbeknownst to us, the linear line that runs from the road to the building is old and decrepid. The very powerful, very efficient new nozzle the city has acquired, does such a fine job on their system that it blows everything that is in the linear line back up and out through every possible opening it could find in our building. (At such great force that I heard Ahab himself in the distance shouting, "Thar she blows.......")
The powers that be decide that after the children are put on busses, and the afternoon classes were
cancelled, the staff should take the rest of the day off as half an Act Of God day so clean-up could be done. I like to keep these days for bad weather, so I argue the point. The problem was being solved, I argue, the clean-up is being done, why can't I stay and catch up on paper work? "NO,NO,NO!"
is the answer, an Act of God day it is!
My comeback argument to my boss? "Since when does God have bowel movements?"
(I warned you)
One Tuesday
The lesson plans I drew up for this week is Personal Safety. Every year during this part of the curriculum we try to teach the children to be safe with their bodies, or at least give them the tools to tell if something has happened to them.
On Tuesday of this particular week, we were discussing "private parts", where they are on your body, and what a boys are called, as well as what a girls are called. Well, after a very exhausting, seeming endless amount of time, giggles, and hee haws from the group, I had the children tell
me what they call their own private parts.
I heard the usuals, wee wee, tutu, front butt, back butt, winkie. Then I told the group the actual names, penis, vagina, and breasts.
From the back of the group I hear a little girl, who hadn't yet said one word, say quietly, "No, Miss
Tammy, that's not what boys and girls have." "What do they have?" I asked her. She stood up and very emphatically announced to me, "Boys have horses, and girls have barns."
Now I am usually very generous with the feelings of my babies in the classroom, I am very thoughtful about the feeling of youngsters, but on that Tuesday I laughed my ass off in the presence of this group. The only thing that went roaring through my brain is that the daddy in her house walks in from work, looks at the mommy and declares, "Open up the barn door honey, the horse is coming home!!!"
Sometimes, life proves more hilarious than fiction.
love me later ~ tj
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