Some kids

Where to start?

My new program is fairly small. There are a few reasons for that, one of them being that they've had five different people in the position over the last 18 months. There's been no continuity in care. Of course that does not enhance a program's reputation.

It's not that there's anything wrong with the school or the location, either. It's just that if you're working there, you're working alone. There aren't many kids. And instead of staying to build a program, as soon as a position opens up where the (most of them anyway) barely-past-teenage girls can go and be with their little friends and work, they apply for that position.

This morning was the first day of school. I did not have any kids in program, as their parents preferred to take them to school on the first day. I think that's great... when I had a child in school I felt the same way.

But they did stop by to say hello. About 8:15 there was a knock at the back door. When I opened it, the two boys who were standing outside with their mom came in. They took about four steps in and said, in unison, "Wow!" They were very excited to see new toys and a completely different arrangement for the room. Colin kept picking up new things and saying, "Hey! We never had this before! Hey! We never had this before!" So the new arrangement was a success, I think.

Some other parents came in with their daughter. Colette is a first grader, and was really, really excited about her Cars backpack. "I like cars and trucks and princesses," she told me as she walked around the room touching things. "That's why I have this backpack. I don't think any other girls will have this." I'm betting she was right.

On Tuesday while I was setting up, I was going to clean out the little refrigerator that's there, but when I opened it and saw how moldy it was, I decided I needed bleach. Brought that in this morning. I opened it to spray bleach, and when I pulled a little on the drip pan that's under the freezer section, pink gloppy moldy gelatin water slopped out all over the floor.

So the little twit who was at the site when school was out not only neglected to wipe the fridge out and leave the door OPEN all summer, she didn't even defrost it. Just unplugged it and left it sitting there.

I was pissed as hell. What kind of idiot does that????

Apparently that one.

So I didn't get the fridge done this morning. I had the bleach but no rags. So I showed up an hour early this afternoon to get the job done. What a fucking mess.

I got it all done. And threw away the rags. Not going to wash them in my washer, which would have been the only choice besides trashing them.

I let my manager know about it, but I'm also going to let the upper manager guy know. Mostly so it doesn't happen to anyone else.

I didn't get away unscathed, I got a tiny bit of bleach on my brand new company t shirt. I only have one I can wear, as the other one is half polyester and I need to return it to them since I can't wear it anyway.

I will have seven or eight kids after the Kindergarten starts next week.
My old program was pretty small at first, too. By the time I left it was a LOT bigger. I'm hoping to manage to do that again.

The kids I met today are nice kids. I have a little redheaded boy. He's a first grader. So he's busy and needs to be reminded about rules a bit. But he's not misbehaving, he's just little. I don't want to squash him, I just want him to be safe... "Dude, you're supposed to hang down from the monkey bars, not climb on the top of them." He gets down. And two minutes later, he's climbing up again. "I expect you to listen to me the first time I tell you something, Billy. What you're doing isn't safe and you're not going to be allowed to do that here."

The little girl (cars, trucks and princesses... love it) wasn't with me very long this afternoon, her mom came to get her early so they could go celebrate the first day of school with a frozen yogurt together.

So I asked the boys what they were interested in and gave them a choice of several different things I have here at home. They conferred briefly and decided that Hot Wheels would be fun. I won't be able to bring all my stuff in until I get a bunch of things cleared out of there, but I can bring a few things that will be fun for them.

Not many kids, but they're nice ones. As my old co-worker Sunshine has always said, they all love the same.

It's going to be an interesting school year.