The Adventure of the Chocolate Bar, the Underpants, and the Paper Plate
Preschool started off normal. Wednesday is chapel day, so instead of having circle time this morning, we went and heard about Baby Jesus, the shepherds, and the angels. Then we took some toys from the toy drive across the street to the food bank/ clothing bank/ whatever else bank run by the church the school is at. We sang one of our Christmas songs to the workers there and they gave the kids chocolate bars. Then we snaked back across the street to school, put the candy in the kids' cubbies, and washed up for snack.
After snack, my class (the three-year-olds) has playground time. The teacher takes her break for the first fifteen minutes, so that's when I am In Charge. *Cue ominous music* I was pushing the girls on the swings in turns and the boys were playing this game they invented called Bucket Chase. It involves running around with buckets and is very noisy. Every once in a while, I would do a quick head count to make sure everyone was present, accounted for, and relatively uninjured. Three girls and five boys. One of the boys, Cameron-- the "ganch" from Halloween ("ganch" being Cameronian for "skunk")-- came over and asked me (in fluent Cameronian) to push him on the swings. I told him I would push him after Ashton, whose turn came after Toni's. So he waited while I pushed Toni and then Ashton. Then Toni wanted me to take her across the monkey bars. That only takes a few seconds, so I told Cameron I would push him after that. After I got Toni across, I did another head count. Toni was by the monkey bars, the other two girls and Cameron were on the swings, and Brandon, Brody, and Stephen were playing Bucket Chase. That's seven kids. I was missing one.
I asked the kids if they knew where Owen was and they said no. So I told Cameron I had to find Owen and would push him later. Usually when you can't find a kid it's because he or she is behind the playhouse, even though they know they're not allowed back there. So I looked behind the playhouse. Owen wasn't back there. He also wasn't inside the playhouse or in the tunnels or in the fort under the slide where the boys like to hang out. I looked in the bathroom, and he was in one of the stalls, even though he knows he's supposed to ask first. Owen is developmentally delayed and he has trouble with some things, so I asked him if he was okay, and he said he was, so I went out to go push Cameron on the swings. But before I could do that, I had to help Brandon and Stephen untangle the wagon from a tricycle for their post-Bucket Chase lap around the bike path. Then the girls wanted hula hoops (or "hoopah hoops") from the shed where we stash the toys. After we got all that straightened out, I went back to the bathroom to check on Owen.
Here this turns into a potty story, so if you plan on consuming chocolate or lemonade in the near future, you might want to stop reading.
Anyway, I got into the bathroom, and there was Owen, standing out in the middle of the bathroom, with his shoes, pants, and underpants on the floor in front of him instead of on him where they belong. Luckily, his shirt reached down to his thighs, otherwise I would have to gouge out my eyes and run off the nearest cliff. I asked him what had happened and he told me he had wet his pants. He does this every once in a while, so he knows the routine. Take off your shoes, pants, and underpants and Cassandra (I'm not sure why they call me that) will get you a clean set of clothes.
So I told Cameron I would push him in just a little while, and went and got Owen's spare clothes. I'm not supposed to spend much time in the bathroom when I'm the only one on playground duty because I need to watch the other seven kids. So I gave Owen his clean pants and underpants and a plastic bag to put the dirties in and went back out to the playground. I was on my way to the swings where Cameron was still waiting patiently, but first I had to have a little talk with Stephen about why he needs to stay sitting on his tuchas (the new word I taught them-- they're very fond of it) while he's riding in the wagon. Then I went to go check on Owen again. He was standing in the middle of the bathroom, still bottomless, with his underpants on his head, and eating the chocolate bar he'd gotten earlier that morning. Only I didn't realize it was chocolate because that was supposed to stay in his cubby and I thought I was looking at something really disgusting. Then I saw the empty candy wrapper, and I have to say I was relieved.
I took the underpants off his head, made him put down the chocolate, and forced him into his underpants and pants. Oy. Luckily, he kept his shirt down. Then we washed our hands and went back to the playground. Cameron was still sitting there, waiting patiently. I pushed him on the swings an extra-long time.
After we got back into the classroom, we colored some pictures, and then it was time for lunch. Lunch today was bologna sammintses, which many of you know by the name "sandwiches." As usual, Kayla only ate the outside of her sammints and pointed to the cheese and bologna on her plate and said what she says every day at lunch: "I don't like this, Cassandra." Somehow, that always leads to the kids calling me Chicken-Head. I told them to settle down and eat their lunches. Along with their sammintses, they had carrot and celery sticks, cucumber, pear slices, and tomato soup. They ate the sammintses pretty well, except Kayla but that's normal for her. And they ate the pears and some of the soup. They even choked down some of the carrot sticks because I call them bunny rabbits when they do and they like that. But they wouldn't eat their celery. I really want them to eat their vegetables and I have found a way to make sure they do.
It all started this one time Kayla, queen of the picky eaters, wouldn't eat any of her lunch. I told her to eat her celery and she said, "YOU eat YOUR celery!" I said, "I did," and I showed her my empty plate. She said, "Eat your plate!" I said, "What?" She said, "Eat your plate, Cassandra!" I said I would eat a bite of my paper plate if she ate all her celery. I didn't think she would actually eat her celery, you see, because we'd been arguing back and forth about that celery for half an hour. She had that stick of celery scarfed down in seconds. Paper plate is a lot like tofu. It's chewy and it doesn't really taste like anything, but it goes down easily. She had the time of her life watching me eat that thing. Well worth the celery she had to gag down.
"Eat your plate, Cassandra!" has become Kayla's other catchphrase, in addition to "I don't like this, Cassandra." So today, when I told them to stop calling me Chicken-Head and eat their lunches, Kayla said (all together, now), "Eat your plate, Cassandra!" I said I would eat a bite of my plate if each kid ate at least one stick of celery. You wouldn't believe how they gobbled those things down. Then they all gathered around me and watched me eat my papery dessert.
So that was my day. Don't tell me I'm not dedicated.
