So today I did church nursery. Normally it is myself and a teenage girl that does it but I happened to know that this girl was out of town so I took my 9 year old daughter. She was quite apprehensive about it, as if she hadn't a clue in the world how to play with kids. She has three younger siblings but apparently that was not quite enough experience.

She did great. Normal is not a word I would use to describe today's experience. There was a new family with an almost 3 year old boy and a 3 1/2 month old baby. So that topped out our crew of 1 two year old girl, three 2 two year old boys, my three kids and the baby. Not too bad. As the mom of one of the boys was dropping off her son, she saw the kids in there and asked if I needed help, SURE! I said perhaps a little too enthusiastically. She said she wouldn't be able to pick up the kids as she had been rear-ended in an accident earlier in the week so her back was strained a little still.

As we were finishing up snack time during a mostly uneventful morning, one boy, he shall remain nameless to protect the guilty, decided to grab our marker that we use to mark the cups. It was a retractable Sharpie. He colored on his shirt and his belly, and was working on the table before we could get to him.

So, I grabbed the marker and put it away. Then grabbed the hand sanitizer to help get the stain out (it is an alcohol base and that gets out most pen and marker stains on non-porous surfaces). It was getting the stain out but I needed to rinse it. So, off came the shirt and we spied a sweater that someone had left so we placed that on the boy. As I rinsed, I turned around and realized I had left the sanitizer on the table WITH the boy! It was now, all over the table. I was not concerned over the loss of the product as much as I was worried if he had ingested it. It only takes about three squirts of the stuff to give a small child alcohol poisoning.

We continued to rinse the shirt and got a good bit of it out. He then dumped a glass of water all over the table. Then the box of crayons got it next. They had an exciting field trip to the floor.

Each thing was a battle to have him clean it up of course. We ended up putting the shirt in the dryer. It was still wet when his parents got him. I noticed he had on a diaper so as it got closer to time, I dreaded changing it. But he happily complied to that. I grabbed what I thought was his diaper bag and changed him. There were some Cheerios in the bag so I let him have some while I changed him. As I was replacing the bag on the hook, the other worker said, did you change him with that bag? Yes, I replied. She said, That is ours. Oh no! I was so sorry.

Well...I think that was most of it. Aside from one of the other little boys have a potty accident.

So that was my nursery service...

Some time, I will share about how we wrangled a snake out of my mother-in-law's house.

The Old Schoolhouse

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