Four Men and Lots of Babies

On Sunday I had the rare treat, along with 3 other guys, of relieving the nursery workers for one hour while they attended a meeting.

Only one hour.

There were about 15 kids in the nursery but only 1 was older than 2 yrs. So us guys all looked at each other and starting pumping each other up saying things like "hey we can do this, no problem".

We started with snacks. An easy confidence builder. Just dump out some goldfish and things were calm. Until we started getting the random complaints and demands. "I need water", "I need more fish", "I don't like goldfish", "I want my mommy"

We slowly got into a rhythm of hovering around the tables serving these little tykes as they demanded something. But as soon as we had it under control some of the kids finished and started wandering around. This posed our first dilemma. We couldn't quite clean up because we still had that one kid that just sat there eating one goldfish per hour. And when we tried to take her plate away she threw a fit. We also had the other kid that obviously hadn't had anything for breakfast and just wanted "more, more, more".

After finally cleaning up the snacks we looked at the clock. A whole 5 minutes had passed. A slight sense of panic started to set in as we realized we had another 55 minutes to kill!!

All right, singing time. We all looked at each other, no one willing to stand up and attempt to lead an unruly pack of kids in Old McDonald Had a Farm.

%^&$

Ok I will do it, the guy who truly can't sing. By the time I get through one song, no kids are really following along and the other Men quickly suggest we try something else. Like I said, no talent.

And so we continued, desperately trying to find activities that could move that minute hand along. A few memorable moments.

I made two different kids cry because I didn't use my "soft, loving voice". (gag)

We had 1 kid who asked to go to the bathroom and about 6 others demanded to go as well, but all but 1 had diapers on.

We lined the kids up against one wall and had them run to the other wall. Yeah. That was more like a football tackle drill. So then we had them crawl which at least avoided the collisions.

One kid kept licking another.

My kid (Ryan) kept climbing on tables and jumping off, mostly on top of other kids.

In the end there were no major traumas, no poopy diapers and no hysterically crying kids. Just a couple of freaked out guys, grateful for the women who deal with the mayhem all week long and then take on nursery for 2 hours.

Mindy is a nursery worker.

I bet she just can't wait to go to church on Sunday.