What is it you do again?

I'm just a babysitter.

Here's what I did today.

Got up and showered and dressed in time to clock in at 9:30.
Dealt with emails, activity plans, worked on the newsletter for the month.
Looked at our app for absences and attendance changes.

Answered three more emails and a message that popped up while I was doing the other stuff.

(Cullen broke his arm this weekend, here are his restrictions, call us if there are issues or if he is in pain, Rebekah will be out again today. John is taking the extra curricular classes on Monday and Thursday. Custodial parent updating me on legal paperwork for non-custodial other parent.)

Ate brunch while tying my shoes and working on the write up for the Rube Goldberg boxes that we're sending out to a couple of sites. Sending some links to YouTube kids science videos to give the young humans a grasp of the basic concepts of simple machines.

And my favorite video to show when introducing the concept of a Rube Goldberg machine...

It's all hands on, they like to experiment.
And at this age, they're willing to make a lot of mistakes, they don't even really see them as mistakes.
They're learning in the best way possible, by doing stuff.
Doing it differently.
Doing it again and collaborating with other kids and coming up with other ideas.
Saying, "What if we try it this way?"

Bear in mind that most of the kids aren't interested in making simple machines and things like 'slappers' and 'droppers'. What they really want is to see how far they can make a marble go and how many dominoes they can knock over.

Which is great. Fun. Non-threatening way to learn.
I'm not enough of a control freak to make them do it 'right' when they're actually doing it just fine already.

So that's my prep time in the morning. Oh, also punched out a bunch of leaves and flowers and had Eric get my box of Valentine stuff down so I could get a few stickers. We're making Valentines for seniors in assisted living.

I checked GPS while I was putting my jacket on and looking for my car keys. Which for some reason I thought were in my backpack but no, they were exactly where I left them, in the dish on the counter in the kitchen where I always put them.

Sheesh.

GPS said I would have a quick commute, 34 minutes. That is quick, it's usually closer to 40. But traffic was light.

Everything was going along fine. I was crossing the Marquam Bridge.
Lower deck, right where it splits and one can choose I-5 South or Hwy 26.

I was behind and one lane over to the right behind a big Ford half-ton with dual wheels. He was heading toward 26 while I was in the right lanes to Salem.  He hit a bump and an extension ladder flew off his truck, bounced behind him and missed my windshield by inches. The ladder came to rest in the lane behind him, he just kept going.

It looked remarkably like this one,
only dual wheels in the back and maybe a little more beat up

It happened so fast that even if I'd known it was going to happen I wouldn't have been able to steer around it. I wasn't even directly behind him. Just luck that it bounced sideways a bit.

Anyway, no harm done to me, although I may have peed a little.
Some things will never be told.

I grabbed my phone and called 911 to report the giant obstacle on the freeway. Took them about six minutes to answer the phone, during which the announcement to 'stay on the line, do not hang up, make sure you know your location so we can send help to you' was repeated over and over and over in English, then Spanish, then English then Spanish... endless loop until they answer, I guess.
The first time it started in Spanish, I was confused, thought I must have pressed 8 for Spanish, but no.

I was trying to get my earbud in so I could put the phone down when dispatch finally answered. I explained the situation and hung up.

Got to my school early-ish to check in at the office and decide what to bring out for a scaled down version of my regular program. Not only do we have less space to start our afternoons, but due to some heating system problems, we have four gigantic space heaters in our space. I can't set up stuff for the kids too close to those, despite safety precautions, they're still hot.

Today was the first day of the new semester of enrichment classes for the general population of the school. That means a bunch of noisy kids in our cafeteria during snack time. Several of my kids are taking the extra classes, so my group was small.

Mikey, who's one of my littlest guys, was sitting next to me after he had a snack.
He's usually a sunshiny little guy, friendly and outgoing and 99.9% of the time, cheerful.

He surprised me by starting to cry.
He surprised me even more by continuing to do so.
Out of character for the little guy.

So I asked him what was wrong as I handed him a tissue.

"Nnn-nothing. I just want my mommmmm."
Oh geez, the poor kid.

"Do you feel sick, Mikey?"
"No," he said, continuing to cry. "I'm just sad and I want my Mom."

He was not able to regulate his emotions. I tried all the usual stuff, offering different projects/toys/snacks. He just kept weeping.

So I texted what I thought was his mom. Turns out it was his dad, a story for another day, but the morning crew who input phone numbers had assigned Mom's number to Dad and vice versa.

I just said that he was having trouble and very emotional, and that I wanted to let them know.

20 minutes later, he was still crying. So then I called the number. Surprise, it was Dad! He asked to talk to his son, so I gave him the phone. He didn't understand where the speaker went, so I helped him figure that out, then gave him space to talk to his dad.

I couldn't hear the conversation, but he walked over to me and gave me the phone when he was done. I saw that the line was still open, so I said hello and Dad told me he was heading into a short meeting and to call him back if anything changed, and that they would get there as soon as they could to get him. He agreed with me that it's very unusual for his son to be sad like that.

We went outside for our recess time. Mikey sat next to me, still crying. He had quite a handful of tissues by this time. I suggested he walk over and throw them away, and he said no, that he wanted to keep them 'just in case he cried more'.

Which he proceeded to do.
New wrinkle, he said his ear hurt.

His mom called me. Which is when I figured out the phone number thing.
She said that his baby brother had been sick and was sleeping, but she would be there to get Mikey in about 20 minutes, she had to bundle up the baby and walk because her car is in the shop and Dad was across town.

Meanwhile, Cullen decided to show me a note from his dad that said something like, 'my kid can take tylenol or advil, if you have questions call me'.

Turns out Cullen (age 7) had pills in a ziplock bag in his backpack.
Holy Hell, Batman.

I called Mom.

"This is not an emergency," I told her right away.
I have been the parent on the other end of the phone, and I want to know how urgent things are before you tell me anything, thank you.

Explained that not only am I not allowed to give him those medications without the actual packaging they come in, but that he can't have them in his backpack during program.
(That whole licensing thing)

She was frustrated, said, "I TOLD his dad not to do that!! I'm so sorry!!"
And that she'd be there to get Cullen in 15 minutes or so.

We made a pile of valentines for the elderly people who are in assisted living. I cleaned up that mess (glue gets into a lot of places, which is why I have table covers, lol) and the kids seemed to enjoy the project.

Also, Olivia wet her pants again and denied doing so.
Instead of changing her clothes, she tied the sleeves of her big heavy winter coat around her waist and sat on that. Absorbent layer and camouflage all in one. Nope, nothin' to see here!

Bailey and Maria got in a vociferous argument about whether or not God and Jesus are real. John got mad at Adam and knocked over his blocks.
"There!" he said. "I guess that shows you!"

Adam responded by putting a hand up and saying, "Dude. Chill."

At 5 PM we began cleaning up the room in preparation to get out the 5 o' clock box only to have all the kids picked up by 5:15, which coincided with the last of the clean up.

I really love being a babysitter.