Are you happy now??

Jennifer was in fine form today.

I talked to Sunshine on my way home and heard about what happened this morning. Jennifer had said something unkind to Amber, and Chrissie went to Sunshine and told her, "Jennifer is being mean to Amber, and I don't like to hear her being so mean."

So Sunshine said she'd deal with it.

And a moment later, Jennifer, who had seen Chrissie go talk to Sunshine, came wandering over. Sunshine said, "Jennifer, please make sure the words you're using are kind words. Please be respectful to everyone here."

And Jennifer started to cry loudly, blaming other people, "Everyone is so mean to me!!"

And she stumbled off, crying, and as she passed Chrissie, she snapped, "Are you happy now? You got me in trouble!!"

And Sunshine called her back over and said, "You weren't in trouble until you started blaming everyone else for your actions. It's not nice to yell at everyone else when you're the one being mean."

Sunshine said the tantrum didn't last long, because all the staff members have learned that if Jennifer is denied an audience, she stops a little quicker.

I arrived at 1.

It's always busy at shift change.
We had an interesting project to do this afternoon, which kept some kids busy until snack time.

During snack (little packages of goldfish crackers), I was on the phone with a parent, explaining about water day tomorrow. I looked over at the snack tables, and Jennifer was dropping little goldfish on the floor under her feet. One, two, three, four. Then, she carefully looked down and stepped on each one.

Kevin* came over to me as soon as I hung up the phone and said, "Jennifer is dropping her snack on the floor and stepping on it."

"I know, Kevin. I will come talk to her."

She saw him come over. A minute later I walked over to her table and said, "Jennifer, when you're done with your snack,you'll need to get a broom and sweep up the floor under your chair."

She tried to look innocent. "I didn't drop anything!"

"You do know I can see you, right?" I told her. "I was talking on the phone, but I can see see you while I talk. I watched you drop your crackers on the floor, Jennifer."

Instead of sheepishly owning up, she turned to Kevin and snarled, in the most venomous tone imaginable, "Are you happy? You got me in trouble!"

And she began to weep, loudly. She stomped off into the corner and crawled under a table. Still crying.

I ignored her. About five minutes later (it used to last for 20) she came out from under the table, meekly got the broom and dustpan, and cleaned up her mess.

I sat down with her a little later and we talked about choices and getting into trouble. And how it's not fair to blame other people for the choices she makes.

After reading time this afternoon, she decided to clean the book cart. She rearranged it all and made it look very nice. I'm not sure what her motivation was, unless it was just to show that she isn't always doing something to get into trouble.

The child is never boring. I'll tell you the rest of the story tomorrow, time to get ready for bed.