ltlbird, you are my hero

[sigerson]

I never thought temping would be like this.

Bouncing from receptionist job to receptionist job, yes. And that's the majority of it. Thankfully, on the week before Labor Day, calls are few and far between. Funny, everyone seems to be "out of the office" or "at an off-site meeting".

But yesterday, I got a very different temp job.

I worked at a daycare.

Just for an afternoon, in order to provide the state-appointed number of adults in a room at any one time. And most of it was naptime. I was in the infant and toddler room.

What have I learned from this?

1. I don't know what to do with a kid. I don't know how to get them to do something, or to stop doing something. I don't know how to stop crying, or get them to go to sleep, or bring a shy child into a group. I have zero knowledge of this. None. Absolute bupkis. I don't even know how to hold one properly.

2. I like kids. I can't deal with them, but I like them. I loved babbling with one of them, then realizing I could understand what he was saying. I like making them grin or smile or look fascinated. I like watching them try things out, and I like seeing what they do know (we hold on to the rope when we walk) and what they don't (if I move fast with the rope, the other person holding it will fall).

Okay, don't freak out. I have no plans of immanent spawnage. Nor even plans in the next five years. But I think this was the first time I didn't run screaming from the idea of having a kid.

Which may be the scariest lesson of the day.

Worldcon update once I'm through with my games...

Comments

[shellaby.livejournal.com]

I used to be my mom's right hand when she was raising my younger siblings. I knew a lot about children. But then that all stopped when my youngest brother turned 6 or something and it's been many many years since I've dealt extensively with kids. Then on Tuesday, we had dinner with a cool techie woman (friend of my roomie S.) She had a 2 year old son who developed a strong "crush" for me within a minute of meeting me. He wouldn't leave me alone all night - at first it was really hard to deal with him, I couldn't focus on what the adults were talking about, I didn't know how to make him happy enough to go away, I didn't know what in the world was so great about me to him. I was rather uncomfortable with him. After an hour of this I realized I could just go ahead and talk to the adults while at the same time picking him up and flipping him upside and shaking him a little, and he just went crazy with joy. He loved it! Go figure.