Thursday, May 18, 2006

back by popular demand... uninteresting life.

monday, tuesday, thursday and friday, i wake up at 6:00 am, make a lunch, primp a little (for the sake of my fellow bus-folk. my babbies don't care if i'm wearing deoderant), and head out the door just before 7:00. a 15 minute walk to the skytrain, half hour skytrain ride, half hour bus ride, 15 minute walk to my infant/toddler center, so i'm there by 8:30. for nine and a half hours i play with babbies. some days, everyone's good and pleasant and i love what i do. other days (like today), everyone has their angry faces on and half of them show up already crying and no one is consolable. most days are a mixture of small, perfect-toothed grins and crocodile tears, and emma roberts won't eat her lunch.

i leave at 6:00 pm. it's the same path home, so i'm there by 7:30. i prep for the following day while i watch 24 with my family (on DVD; only saps watch shows in syndication), journal for the sake of my practicum credit, juggle my thailand preparations (anybody wanna donate some $$ towards my trip?), sometimes i shower, sometimes i kill a precious hour grocery shopping, sometimes i have a good chat with my mum.

i have to get up at 6:00 again the next morning, so i go to bed at 10:00. except for tuesday nights, because wednesdays i don't have to get up until 7:00. wednesdays i spend the day with elle, my precious special needs practicum, and her mother and older sister. i'm there all day. i leave at 5:00, and get home by 6:30, so comparatively speaking, it's a short day. the intensity of the one-to-one interaction, however, compounded by her older sister hovering about like an amiable but oh so inconvenient fly, makes it far more exhausting than nine hours with toddlers. i also spend five hours with elle on sunday mornings, ferrying her through her sunday school classes and whatnot, while her mother, paladin of overwhelmed parents, runs the special needs program that allows elle to be in such whatnot.

for all two saturdays in may thus far, i have attended weddings. even when i am not taking a supporting role in the wedding itself, this still involves me getting myself to abbotsford and back, which is a transit nightmare.

so that's me. my main adventures consist of the time joel gave me a driving lesson in his ratty old car (standard, of course), and the time andrew got himself covered in baby spiders. the driving began with me telling joel (in my most threatening manner) that this would put a strain on our relationship, and ended with him picking me a yellow tulip to congratulate my hurculean efforts. the ickity bickity spider adventure began in the back field of my daycare. andrew is two-and-a-half, and came out from under the climber on tuesday crying hard, repeating that he didn't like the bees, and twitching every so often as though fending something off. i was afraid that a bee had gotten caught in his shirt sleeve, and was stinging him repeatedly (although we did just finish two weeks on bugs, so by now i know a thing or two about bees and how they can only sting you once before they die, final proof that God is just), and so i rushed over to him. as i got closer, i realized that his upper half was swarming with something. he had crawled through a spider's nest, and baby spiders covered his hat and his neck and shoulders. my ultimate fear factor is a spider, so internally i panicked. externally, i plucked off his hat and quickly brushed the poison-yellow creatures from his clothes and skin. having cleansed him, i drew his skinny body into my lap and held him for a long moment, as much for my own reassurance as his. 'andrew,' i said, 'that was a horrifying experience.' 'yes,' he replied. then, '...what's howwifying mean?'

that's all.


Jane said...

I will never complain about my life again.

Jane said...

Oh and thanks.
I'm sitting here feeling imaginary baby spiders crawling all over my scalp. And legs. And back.

alan.schram said...

Are you sure you got them all out of his hair? What if one is rooted in there and lays eggs and then it'll hatch one night while he's sleeping and suddenly he'll wake up screaming in pain but the spiders will then squiggle into his mouth, crushing his scream and then THAT would be yet another howwifying experience, no?