Well, that's special.

I've been swamped with work, life in general and just being burned out. I woke up on Wednesday last week with a cyst inside the back of my right knee. So I wasn't already having enough physical issues, I could hardly walk all week. 

I couldn't get my leg into the car without grabbing it and making it move with my hands. I couldn't bend the knee far enough to get OUT of the car, either. Had a few really bad moments when I arrived at work, but there were about two inches of extra distance in my car's seat. After I moved it back, I was able to get in and out. Had to bring my cane, though.

God I hate admitting that I am not the girl I used to be.

I took a lot of Excedrin that week. Every day it was awful to make it to work. Trying to get in and out of the shower when I could not bend my knee was lots of fun, too. Cyst finally broke (I felt an awful POP) on Friday morning.

Tough week. Kicked my ass.

So if anyone has noticed my absence, that's my official excuse.

Last week they had me running what's called 'specialty camp' at a small charter school. It's a half day camp, running from 1 to 5 PM. Good for people who don't actually need day care but want something fun and safe and engaging for their kids to do.

I had six young humans and one slightly older one to hang out with. The older one is a new hire, and I did not expect to like her.

There's a reason for that.

In March, Anacin (substitute site director) was hired for the site where I was working while they waited for a site to open.

Her name isn't actually Anacin, but I call her that because she gives me a headache.

She isn't a bad person, and is decent to the kids, but has a bit of idiocy. One of the really annoying things about Anacin is the vocal fry. Her affectation just... grates on me. She also does not have kids of her own, which doesn't disqualify a person from this type of work, but having a real understanding of kids is easier when you do.

I remarked about one of the kids in our program who has ADHD. I said that his diagnosis wasn't a choice, but the fact that he is a decent person and tries to do the right thing is a choice. She shut that down immediately, rolling her eyes and making an exasperated noise. She didn't see the effort it takes for him to just be. He doesn't fit in most situations and she was unwilling to see what I saw in him. She was kind to him, though.

She's also really, really excited to fill out an incident report every time a child steps a toe over the line. Most of those incident reports aren't necessary, but she acts like she's going to win a prize.

Terri, the new hire who worked with me last week, is one of Anacin's friends. She applied for the job based on Anacin's recommendation. So yeah, I figured I would dislike her. Happy to report that I was wrong. She is very nice, excellent with the kids, helpful with the things that need to be done and willing to do anything needed to keep things rolling along.

Sadly, she's really qualified, as in site director qualified, so she will be getting her own site this fall. I would love to have worked with her while I start my new program.

Okay. So.The oldest kid we had was nine, she had a birthday last month, so a young nine. The rest were six or seven.

The theme for the week was 'one with nature'.

Day one was about rocks and volcanoes. We had rocks to paint and a soul-crushingly boring YouTube video about volcanoes. Now I would have liked to help the kids make a volcano, but there were no supplies for that.

Other lessons for the week were learning about water, insects, animals and plants. The Anacin-designed lesson plan wasn't bad, but it was very sparse and did not fill up four hours a day.

Some of the activities on it weren't practical. For example, the kids were supposed to meet a tree. We were to blindfold the kids, take them outside to where there are lots of trees, pick one, take a child to the tree and have them feel the bark and smell the tree, perhaps hold a leaf in their hand. Then we were to go back to a central location and have the kid try to guess which tree they'd 'met'.

Not practical where we were, the charter school is in an industrial park. There is a bit of vegetation, but no trees.

And I'm not sure which universe the person who said 'all the supplies are there' lives in, but it's not the universe *I* live in. We had a cardboard box with some peat pots and some seeds. That was it for the whole week.

So as I always do, I brought some things with me, scrounged around the site for some other things and turned something sort of boring into as much fun as I could.

Monday, we made solar bracelets (I brought the beads, which change color in sunlight), painted rocks and played a few games. Sneaked in a little science lesson, too. Smeared sunscreen on some of the beads and took them outside with the ones that had not been screened. The kids were suitably impressed.

Tuesday, after I'd learned my lesson on Monday about the lack of supplies and the sparse curriculum, I started bringing some stuff in.

Air dry clay. Rocks and moss and little critters to make dioramas. Scrapbook paper and buttons and little punched out flowers. Glue. Cartesian divers. Pipettes to drip water onto coins and show surface tension. I made two little paper guys and colored them with water color markers, then put one under water, pulled him out and showed how the color ran. Second one went inside an inverted medicine bottle (like a diving bell) and was submerged. He came out dry, of course, which impressed the kids. I brought fidgets I've purchased for my new program, too. Because it's always fun to get your hands on things, am I right? Of course I'm right.

I brought several books about insects.
Some of the kids said, "Eww!" when we started talking about bugs.

I told them, "No, no! You're entomologists now! You can no longer say 'eww'."

They thought it was funny, but wanted to know what they're supposed to say instead.

I told them, "You must look smart and serious and say,"Oh, how interesting!"

We put the bug books on the parent table. One of the moms came to pick her kids up, saw the bugs we'd created sitting there and said, "Eww!"

Her daughter said, "No, Mom. We're entomologists now. We say 'how interesting'!"

Funny.

The rest of the week was full of activities. I sat there each evening for about 45 minutes past closing time (because traffuck SUCKS) and screened videos about each day's theme as well as looking up different dance videos for the kids to do. Rather do that than sit on the freeway.

The temperatures were too hot for us to be outdoors, so we had to do some physical activities indoors. I found a long, heavy duty cardboard tube in the recycle bin and they did the limbo.

I found lots of other dance videos that fit our themes, too. I also found some much more interesting videos about the rest of the things were were studying and we watched those instead of the dull and stupid ones Anacin had plugged in.

It was a fun week, but knowing that I didn't get what I needed to run the program has me set up for next week when I am once again running things. I'll be spending a bit of time this weekend getting supplies together to take in. I don't want to run a simple little camp, I want the kids to have a really good time, and while the plan isn't bad, it's small. And I don't like to say it's boring, but, well....

This week I worked an hour away from home on Monday, 35 minutes away Tuesday, stayed home with a screaming migraine on Wednesday and Thursday and went back to Tuesday's site today.

I will try to catch you up tomorrow on just how fucking wonderful that was.
Oh the kids are great everywhere. This is definitely the job for me. But godDAMN the people in charge are power-tripping assholes.