This week in Fun and Games or My Personal Circus

I've mentioned it once or twenty times... it is my circus and they are my monkeys.

Kindergarten started this week, so I had several new kids. One of them is Olivia. She's an adorable (and pretty bold for five) little girl. She's bothered by transitions from one activity to the next, so when school gets out, she's upset by the noise and activity level.

Her teacher decided to take her out to wave goodbye to the school buses every afternoon before bringing her to my program. A little one on one time with the teacher and some activity (walking from one end of the building to the other and outside) to wind down.

That seems to have helped.

Olivia is biracial. I only mention this because it was the cause of some hilarity this week.

The first three days of the week, she was picked up by her (white) mom. I had met Mom at the family night just before school started, so I did not ask her for identification when she arrived to collect her daughter.

On Thursday, her dad came to get her. My assistant was closest to the door, so she asked him for ID. Olivia, who was gathering up her little art project next to me, was mystified.

"Why does my daddy have to show Miss Lindsey his driver's license?"

I explained that when we don't know a mom or dad of one of our kids, we ask to see their ID so we know they're the right person to pick up their kid.

She sat a moment, considering. Then, she flipped her hair over one shoulder, quirked an eyebrow at me and said in a tone that I'd describe as sarcastic even though most K age kids aren't strong with verbal nuance, "Do you see any other black kids here?"

I did not laugh. I told her that we don't decide by skin color, we make sure that the driver's license matches our paperwork.

She looked skeptical, but got her stuff and left. Funny.

We have a child who does not identify as male or female. It's not up to me to change someone's mind or even comment on something like that to a kid. I asked Chris if they would prefer male or female pronouns. And got a sideways little grin and, "It doesn't matter. Really. If you call my by my name, that's close enough."

We have a guy we had in the program last year. Aaron's in first grade this year. He decided to experiment with growing his hair out. His dad has long-ish hair. So his mom has been putting his hair up in assorted rubber banded styles. He gets different chalk colors in his hair, too. Just experimenting with self expression, I think.

So on Friday afternoon, Olivia was sitting by me and said, "Hey. Is that kid a boy or a girl?"

Of course I thought she was referring to Chris and I was formulating a response when she pointed at Aaron.

"Aaron is a boy, " I told her.
She looked at him again. Said, "He sure has a lot of hair, doesn't he?"
When I agreed, she said, "'Kay. Bye," and skipped off across the room to play with the stuffed animals.

::snort::

I drove over to the office on Friday. As I was heading out toward the West side over the Marquam bridge, I saw a ladder lying in the breakdown lane but sticking out about 2 feet into the travel lane. Not a good thing. So I called 911 to let them know. Dispatch told me that two other people had called in the last few minutes and that they were on their way to remove the hazard from the freeway.

Most of my kids came back. Two of them moved away during the summer and one family had a relative move in with them so Brandon is going home on the bus instead. But other than that and one school district transfer kid, they're all back again.

One of the things I have to do under licensing is make sure we have a couple drills within the first ten days of school. After that, a monthly fire drill and a monthly 'other' drill. So we did a fire drill and an evacuate the playground drill this past week. Other drills will be earthquake, lock down, move to a different room of the school. Fire drill every month.

For being new to school and small, the Kinders did a good job. We had conference time at the table before we did the drill. I explained that knowing what to do in case of an emergency is really important. That it's not as scary when you know exactly what to do in any situation and that is why we practice.

Then I told them the story about the hornets boiling up out of the ground near the swings during summer camp back in 2015. I told them how many people were stung and about how all the kids were in a panic because they didn't know what to do.

I explained that we had never practiced what to do in an emergency if we had to get off the playground fast, so, "Now we do a drill for that at Mental Daycare."

My signal is three short blasts on the whistle, a pause, three more, another pause and three more. If for some reason that's not sufficient, I repeat the pattern again.

I'm not looking forward to the lock in drill, we'll be hiding out of sight and endeavoring to keep quiet during that time. I have to hang up a sign on the door where parents arrive and let them know we're doing a drill and that we won't be able to answer the door for the next three minutes.

In addition, I have to teach them what to do if there's an actual emergency and one of them is in the bathroom.

I'm just a babysitter.

Speaking of licensing, Monday is the annual licensing visit for my program. I met our new license person last year. She seems nice and is focused on doing a good job. Licensing isn't there to nitpick rules, they're actually there to help us succeed in making a fun and safe place for the kids. So I don't freak out when I know they're coming.

I don't freak out when they drop in once or twice a year, either. All the paperwork is in order and I know where our flashlight is. First aid goes everywhere with us, along with the bug out bag the company provides.

Refrigerator has to be at a certain temp. Play structures and bark on playground need to meet certain specs, too.

It's a huge list, but there isn't anything on it that's hard to do.

My temporary assistant turned in her notice the week she started working with me. I mean, she turned it in before she came to my program, but doesn't matter, it just means I don't have a steady person until Jim comes back. Right now we're looking at November for that.

::sigh::

So that's my week in review. I'm tired. My feet hurt. My brain is going in 75 directions at once.

Why we have to lock children in buildings instead of locking up the people who would threaten them is beyond me.

Anyway, my life isn't boring.
And kids are still hilarious.