Yesterday night we went to the pool for another day of swim team practice. I was doing all right (though a little bit slow) nearly the whole time but then we came to the diving practice. You all know that I’m an exceptional diver and that I am very talented and all that. I guess this time my talents failed me. My stomach and head hurt so hard after I was done I nearly fainted 🙂 It was fun though! My coach was nice, she was teaching me how to do a perfect dive (which you all know I can do. It just wasn’t my day 😉 ) And the children were all kind. I’m actually having lots of fun!
I forgot to post the other day when I went baby sitting about an incident that I had had with a little girl there. Boy is she a handful. The whole time her arm hurt and we had to take her upstairs to her mother at least 80 times. Finally, the girl who was helping me, Rachelle, said no to her going upstairs. Sidney, the little girl, went into a tantrum. Rachelle got her calmed down after a while but pretty soon Sidney went into tantrums again. Rachelle was busy with the other kids so I went down to talk to Sidney. “Where does it hurt?” I said, and she jabbed her finger at her arm.
“Right HERE and my tummy hurts tooooooo!!!”
“Do you want to color?”, I asked “NO!!”, Sidney shouted.
After a little bit of coaxing I got her to color with me and then I went off to help Rachelle while Sidney colored. After maybe three or four minutes Sidney started bawling again. It seems another little girl had accidentally hit her lightly in the stomach.
“WAAAAH!!! I WANNA GO WITH MOOOOOMMMY!!!!”
I asked Sidney if she wanted to color again, “NO!” she replied angrily.
I got out the Winnie the Pooh coloring book and started to color Kanga’s scarf while humming a little tune. The other children soon joined me and we all had a terrific time coloring Kanga and Roo ice skating.
“Oh I’m having LOTS of fun, are you guys having lots of fun?” I asked the other kids.
“YES!!” they all said.
Sidney stopped snuffling. “Can I color too?” she asked.
“No, I thought you didn’t want to color!” I replied.
“But I really, really want to!” Sidney pouted.
“Sidney, I thought you said you didn’t want to color!”
“But I really, really, REALLY want to!”
I let her color and for the rest of the night, Sidney didn’t give us any trouble.
Hamiltons
Well Kelly, you learned quickly what I went to four years of college for… how to engage kids by using the other kids. Amazing how fast a kid will want to join *the fun* if you are praising the other children and spending your time with them. Good job! Are you thinking of being a teacher?
If I get married I will most likely homeschool and therefore be a teacher if I go into the work I will study the works of our Teacher! 🙂 I’m thinking of journalism and some type of science. Maybe biology.