A nursery calling should be ideal, right? I mean, you play with kids, have to prepare a 2 or 3 minute lesson, color, have snacks, and sing fun songs. Done deal. Unfortunately, it doesn't really go that smoothly. Today was our second time in nursery and it was the longest 2 hours of our lives.
We have a few bullies who make it particularly tiring, but ironically entertaining at the same time. But first, there is a little boy named Caleb who is the cutest kid ever. He has dark hair, big blue eyes, and is always smiling. He wears a little bow tie and is polite and plays nice. He's pretty much an angel child. We learned today that he likes to sing the clementine song. When you ask him to do it, he gets a big grin on his face and starts singing in a little 2-year-old voice, "Oh my darlin', oh my darlin', oh my darlin' Clementine..." It's absolutely adorable and I made him sing it 4 more times throughout the afternoon because it's so blasted cute.
Anyway...back to the bullies:
Bully #1: Ella. Ella is out of control. She is the poster child for "terrible twos." She looks absolutely thrilled with herself all the time. Ella likes to take toys from other kids. Now, she doesn't just politely snatch them from their hands. No, no. That would be too easy. She occasionally creates a full on smack down in the nursery and pushes the other innocent small children to the floor. She rams into them every chance she gets and knocks over their block towers.
Bully #2: Jackson. Jackson definitely has the cute factor going for him, however, which makes him a likable bully. Jackson has NO interest in a toy until another kid is playing with it. As soon as Jackson sees another kid enjoying a certain toy (even if he has 5 others in his hand), he heads straight for the other kid and grabs it from them without the kid even knowing what hit him or her! Jackson is good at this. He's also one of the taller kids in the nursery so he has size on his side. Jackson will not sit in his chair, will not sit on his carpet square, and will not play with one of the millions of toys not in use.
Both Ella and Jackson hear their names at least 100 times during the 2 hours of nursery. "Ella, soft hands." "Jackson, give the baby back to Caleb." "Ella, we don't throw the carpet squares at people." "Jackson, let go of Cameron's toy. He had it first." "Share the toys. You each can have one."
Today, we had an incident with the little cherubs. They were all getting a little out of control after the 2 minute lesson, snack, singing, and blowing bubbles. This is where our third culprit, Anya, comes in. Anya is generally a pretty chill kid. She's smart, entertains herself, and is relatively pleasant to be around. Ella pushed Jackson to the floor probably because he just got in her way. Anya, who had been into a pushing match with Ella just a few minutes earlier, decided to help Jackson get up. In her efforts, she got the tightest grip possible on each side of his shaggy hair and pulled. She just pulled and pulled. Jackson looked more confused than ever and in total shock. He had no idea what was going on. We saved Jackson from losing large clumps of hair and then the tears and weeping and wailing came. Understandably so.
This led to several outbursts by random children.
The last 15 minutes seemed like an entire hour in itself. I'm thinking we should propose a mandatory nap time.
Good thing we only have nursery once a month...
