SMALL SURPRISES
Working with kids became the best part of my days in college
I spend a portion of each day speaking in a language most people wouldn't understand. I repeat phrases such as, "Use your words" and "We don't hit our friends, we give soft touches," with such regularity that the words linger in my speech long after I leave the company of small children. I've perfected my very own "teacher's voice" — a voice that with one sound can be calming, authoritative and intimidating. As often as college students say "dude" or "like," I use words like "potty," "poopy" and "potty chair."
I've sat through an entire lecture with ketchup on my neck—a battle wound from serving lunch to people who consider chicken nuggets in the shapes of dinosaurs fine dining and who drink their milk from a spoon. Countless pairs of my jeans have ended up in the back of my closet, the lower portions of them stained with a rainbow of paint smudges and miniature handprints. And I've suffered
through more bouts of cold and flu in the last three years than ever before in my life.
These are just a few of the perks of working with children.
Children all less than 3 years old, to be exact.
It's been almost three years since I hastily applied to work at a local day care center. I had little experience working with kids, and my only expectations for the job were flexible hours
by Elyse Weidner
and a little bit of spending money. The memory of my first day in the classroom is a blur. The endless wave of runny, sticky noses and the restless group of boys who ran in circles around the room, growling like dinosaurs until their faces flushed pink and they could
open their small mouths no further, convinced me that my time with these toddlers wasn't going to last.
Hundreds of goopy noses
Elyse Weidner helps Kassidi, a child at the daycare center where she works, complete a baloon painting.
later and three years into my work as a teacher's aide, the kids I never expected to be more than a job have become the best parts of my days. With only weeks until graduation, my time in Lawrence — and at the center — is running out, and it will be those
red, roaring dinosaur faces, tiny paint-stained hands and the surprises they bring with them that I will miss the most.
In college, learning the skills necessary to enter the profession of your choice is the objective. And in high school the goal is to acquire enough knowledge to get into college. But in early-aged child development, learning to go to the bathroom in the potty chair rather than in your Pampers is the ultimate goal.
Much of the day in the toddler room is centered on this single mission. Parents say goodbye to their children each morning with a kiss and a reminder to "Make potties in the potty chair!" As a teacher's aide, I spend as much time and energy wrestling kids in and out of diapers and training pants as I do leading art activities or patrolling the playground.
Years ago, after my first few weeks at the center, the lead teacher deemed me capable of individually escorting all the 2-year-olds through potty time. And as someone who could barely decipher the front from the back of a diaper, I was more than a little nervous to be in charge of this potty-time responsibility.
But the process seemed
IF I COULD HANDLE AN HOUR OF SAYING THINGS LIKE "PUSH OUT THAT POOPY, AIDAN!" AND PEELING SOILED CINDERELLA TRAINING PANTS OFF OF TEARY-EYED AND FIDGETY 2-YEAR-OLDS, I COULD HANDLE ANYTHING.
Step two: Sit him on the miniature, doll-sized toilet and encourage him to make a potty in the potty chair.Be sure to reiterate that if he can manage to make a poopy he will be awarded a prize from the treasure chest, a wrappingpaper-clad shoebox tattered by years of small hands eagerly rummaging through its contents of stickers and pencils.
When it was time for the final kid to potty, I was feeling confident. If I could handle an hour of saying things like "PUSH out that poopy, Aidan!" and peeling soiled Cinderella training pants off of teary-eyed and fidgety 2-year-olds, I could handle anything.
simple enough. Step one: Wrestle the child out of his outfit smeared with food and the fiery red paint he thought would be better suited on his pants than on his paper during that day's art center.
Then it was Max's turn. He
slid out of his dinosaur shoes and marker-stained sweat pants and hoisted himself onto the potty chair with the ease of a professional. Thinking this kid knew more about the potty process than I did, I turned away from the area for a moment to catch my breath and celebrate what seemed to be my imminent potty-training triumph. Moments later I turned back to find Max bent over, elbow deep in the toilet bowl.
PHOTOS/ ANNA FALTERMEIER
"MAX! I yelled as I lunged toward him, "Where do our hands go when we're on the potty chair?" His head was still upside down, his thick curls spiraling toward the scene of the crime. I grabbed his shoulders and straightened his small frame. But before looking at his hands, with all the calm I could muster, I asked if he'd been playing with his poopies.
"No," he answered, "I was playing with my big penis."
Nine times out of 10,the
While at work, Elyse Weidner helps Corbin put his shoes on before the two head out to the playground.
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kid with his hands dug deep in the toilet bowl is playing with poopies. But it's even more likely that as you wipe the grime from his hands, he will say something so funny that the panic that swept through your body when you saw his small, curious hands disappear into the white porcelain potty chair will dissolve completely.
In a job I never expected to have — let alone enjoy — surprises such as this one and countless other quick, stolen moments shared with my kids while reading a story, singing a song or using the potty chair, have brought me more joy than anything I ever could have planned for or predicted.
If I've been having a terrible day, the moment I step through the door at work I have 20 comedians all clamoring below my hip to capture my attention and make me laugh. I'm pretty sure I won't have that perk when I enter the "real world," and I'm sure going to miss it.
05. 03:2007 JAYPLAY <19
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