School's out. Decompression time.

If you've been reading here for awhile, you know that I love my work. 
I'm one of the rare humans who absolutely loves their job.

Still find it interesting that working with kids ended up being my super power. 
Never saw that coming.

I've been at it 20 years now. 

However.
When the school year is over, I am wiped out. 
Depleted. 
Exhausted. 

Apparently I'm not getting any younger.

Last day of school was June 12th. I've been doing a little catching up here and there, but mostly it's 'sit lumpishly and look at all the stuff that needs to be done while not doing any of it' time.

I did my CPR/1st Aid refresher this week. Hours and hours in front of the computer watching videos and taking little exams. Then yesterday was the hands-on portion. So that's done for another two years.

I'm not working summer program again this year. 

Last year, I chose to take the financial hit and stay away from other people's crazy programming. If you're new here, this is what happened the first summer I worked with this organization.

I raised a little hell over the disrespect and meanness to the kids. 
Actually a lot of hell. 

I'd reached the point in my life where I was no longer concerned with the opinions of most other people. 

(I'm still there, in case you wondered. I now speak up at every opportunity and can see a time in the near future where I'm going to raise a lot of other daycare worker eyebrows. Can't wait.)

But not everything that happens with my employer is a negative. They really are constantly trying to improve. 

One of the things that they've implemented because of me are some traveling boxes. They go out to our programs on a rotating basis.

We have several different types of dramatic play bins. A mad scientist bin, costumes/dress up bins, restaurant bin. Cash registers and play food and lots of clothing to change into. Restaurant order pads, menu folders. 

There are two Rube Goldberg machine bins. Stocked with a ton of dominoes, marbles, ping pong balls, string and rulers and weights and spoons and tin cans. Some sliced lengthwise pool noodles to tape together for longer marble runs. Miscellaneous items, little blocks and wooden wedges and paper towel tubes.

It's supposed to work like this: show them this video

and then some of the how-to from Baker Stem Lab. Then hand them the box and let them experiment.

That would work better if some of our staff weren't so power trippy, many of them think they need to control ALL the experiences. Another thing to address in training. 

We have another traveling bin with 480 plastic cups.

I know I've mentioned them before. I won't run a program without them.

Here's a photo of some of my kids from 2018 and a structure they built in the gym at my old school.

I've been spending a little time at the office, too.
I'm not working with kids during summer program, but I decided to offer some help to the people who are coordinating everything. I go in on Wednesdays and pack up all the supplies for both camps. 

Everything needed for all the crafts on Monday goes into the Monday box. 
Same for every day of the week.

I put it all in large, medium or small ziplock bags, labeled with the name of the activity, which week it's for, which day of the week the activity is supposed to happen etc. Then put them on the shelves in the warehouse to be delivered on Fridays to the summer sites.

It's not difficult work, but it's time consuming and last summer our programming person did all of it in addition to the planning and procurement of supplies.

Summer is also the time she's writing up all kinds of stuff for the school year, too.
She's busy. I'm not. So that's part of what I've been up to.

Our programming specialist has been receptive to all my ideas. 

When we first met, she asked me what I thought would help improve programming. I immediately said, "We need dramatic play. Babies, dishes, fake food."

"Isn't that really a preschool thing?" she said.

"No. It's something that every group I've ever worked with enjoys."

She looked skeptical, but since dramatic play is something I added to my site, she was able to see it in action and see how well it works. 

Now we have those traveling boxes.

I got an email from the VP a couple weeks ago, she was interested in talking to me about that programming person. Since I work directly with her, she wanted my feedback and input about her job performance. It was supposed to be 15 to 20 minutes, and we ended up signing off an hour and a half later.

The conversation went in a couple directions after we'd discussed the job review.

Turns out VP used to work for the evil empire, too. She was at the corporate offices for Champions (division of KinderCare). She said that if she were asked to describe the company in one word, it would be TOXIC in all caps. I couldn't argue with that.

I told her some of my ideas for improvement, using the same phrase that's popped up here now and then. 

I'm not a fan of standard programs, but I really feel like we need program standards.

So now we're talking about fall restock budgets, things that should really be at everyone's site and how to make that happen. 

It's surprisingly gratifying to have ideas that work and be listened to by the people I work for. 

In other news, both my kids had a birthday a couple weeks ago. Now they're 38 and 32 and I say it every year, but where did all that time go?

Now that my dad is gone and my mom seems determined to follow him pretty soon, I've been continuing to process growing up with an abusive parent and a passive abusive parent. I've done a lot of reading and a lot of thinking and I seem to be getting some clarity. 

I may take a page from Mary's book and tell some of my stories here. Not sure.

So there. We played catch up this evening.
Now I'm going to bed. Today was office day and while the work isn't heavy, it's a lot of lifting things and walking around. As mentioned above, not getting younger.

What's going on in your life? Anything exciting?