Today we attempted to apply some of what we learned yesterday in the CVBS nursery.
o Sharpies absent? Check!
o The word snack not uttered until Goldfish portioned into little paper cups? Check!
o Secret stash of chocolate available for the volunteers? Check!
o End-of-day video carefully timed to play through parents-picking-kids-up time rather than ending with 10 minutes to go? Check!
Most of the children had a great time today. Few children — perhaps three out of twenty or so? — became, at different times, sad or agitated enough to require us to fetch a parent or big-sibling from whichever classroom they were working in. Very few tussles over toy-possession (and I think that my Milo was responsible for more than half of those).
How long should a child have to cry before we go get mom? Personally, I like to err on the side of not very long, just a few minutes, really, especially with the children that are neither young enough to be dropped into the sling and walked to sleep nor old enough to respond much to verbal comforting or distraction. Not very long is almost as important for the other kids and for the volunteers as it is for a sad little one. When someone’s crying, you can almost see little cartoon-wavy lines of agitation radiating out of all of our heads. (A good alternative to try first, if there are enough volunteers to go around, is to take the kids outside first — does wonders for the larger ones to see some playground equipment.)
Anyway, crying was only a tiny, tiny part of the day. A lot of the rest was singing, snack, dress-up (nothing like toddler girls stumbling around in toy high heels trailing tulle), cuddling complacent babies, play with an assortment of toys we all brought from home, more singing, an informal craft project involving foam stickers, and in the end, Veggie Tales.
It’s very cool how many big brothers and sisters stopped by to check on "their" babies today. I just want to see if he’s doing all right. Another sign that we’re in a fabulous parish.
UPDATE: Overheard from the CVBS director, I’ve got the goods: Margaret only agreed to run the nursery because she was promised free coffee. And can we have a little real cream with that, please?
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