(Anyone looking for a detailed account of my experience driving across the country this summer can let me know personally, for the sake of sweet time i'm not going to finish that story online at the moment unless an overwhelming response comes battering down my door in the next week or so.)
I walk past a door at work and see a little redhead squatting, squeezing out a mighty, serpentine turd that swims in the mini-toilet beneath his chunky, 3-year old legs.
"I'm taking a poop!" he informs me, fists clenched.
Sometimes i wonder how the hell i got into it again...Just four short months away from the dirty, unglamorous and often scandalous world of human service and here i goddam am again. Its a place called "Unity School", a sweet little non-profit daycare in the northern corner of town where the kids spend half the day outside (rain or shine) and often visit the raised organic gardens to learn about caring for and working with the earth. In which case, their humble garden teacher is none other than yours truly. By morning i am 'Teacher Derek, garden teacher' by afternoon 'grasshopper'. The grasshopper is a sign of age. In this case, most every one of the 19 or so odd children in our room (save one or two other teachers) is three years old. Yeah, that's the one that comes just after the 'terrible twos'.
However, day after day i am floored by how articulate and thoughtful these little angels can be. I think its a myth that children are simple. I think that children are complex and insightful and aware beyond our understanding. They have their sixth sense intact. They know how you feel almost before you do and they react accordingly. With really little kids this is doubly true. This is why the task of the early childhood educator is among the most demanding in all education. Toddlers and young children learn primarily through imitation. If you listen, little children never ask what you are thinking. Their first question is always, "What are you doing?" For this reason, the childhood educator, in speech and deed, must make every effort to be a 'perfect' example for his/her children.
Enough on that. i work in a pre-school/kindergarten/after-school care facility and i love it.
in other news there is still a child in Gaibi's belly. We know because its really huge and gets in the way when she tries to ride her bike and things. Pregnancy is a mysterious and wonderful thing. Everyone should have to go through at least one side of it, whether or not they want kids. I think it just provides a little much needed perspective on the value of human life. What a tragedy it is to think that for every person who wastes their life on drugs or alcohol or the corrupt war we're fighting in Iraq right now, a mother had to bear them for at least 9 months through a journey fraught with dangers and risks at every turn. However, i myself feel very lucky to be with Gaibi through this as there is just something about a pregnant woman that glows unlike any substance in universe. When this woman is the love of your life, you have to wear sunglasses. Gaibi looks like she's stealing a watermelon when we go to the supermarket and we can see big kicks and punches when i play my guitar to her stomach at night. The midwife continues to say that Gaibi and the baby's health signs are 'perfect' and we don't have a car so riding her bike all-over town is certainly good prenatal exercise. I'll probably be taking a class with her soon which hopefully won't require me to simulate a man-birth or do any watercolor pictures of the womb.
And beyond that, life rolls on. We've had lots of guests, good and bad times, but things are finally starting to settle into some kind of jangled routine here in the house its truly beginning to feel like a home (the wood burning stove doesn't hurt. i watch it like television.)
Prayers to all of you shining people who persist in reading this.
-d
I walk past a door at work and see a little redhead squatting, squeezing out a mighty, serpentine turd that swims in the mini-toilet beneath his chunky, 3-year old legs.
"I'm taking a poop!" he informs me, fists clenched.
Sometimes i wonder how the hell i got into it again...Just four short months away from the dirty, unglamorous and often scandalous world of human service and here i goddam am again. Its a place called "Unity School", a sweet little non-profit daycare in the northern corner of town where the kids spend half the day outside (rain or shine) and often visit the raised organic gardens to learn about caring for and working with the earth. In which case, their humble garden teacher is none other than yours truly. By morning i am 'Teacher Derek, garden teacher' by afternoon 'grasshopper'. The grasshopper is a sign of age. In this case, most every one of the 19 or so odd children in our room (save one or two other teachers) is three years old. Yeah, that's the one that comes just after the 'terrible twos'.
However, day after day i am floored by how articulate and thoughtful these little angels can be. I think its a myth that children are simple. I think that children are complex and insightful and aware beyond our understanding. They have their sixth sense intact. They know how you feel almost before you do and they react accordingly. With really little kids this is doubly true. This is why the task of the early childhood educator is among the most demanding in all education. Toddlers and young children learn primarily through imitation. If you listen, little children never ask what you are thinking. Their first question is always, "What are you doing?" For this reason, the childhood educator, in speech and deed, must make every effort to be a 'perfect' example for his/her children.
Enough on that. i work in a pre-school/kindergarten/after-school care facility and i love it.
in other news there is still a child in Gaibi's belly. We know because its really huge and gets in the way when she tries to ride her bike and things. Pregnancy is a mysterious and wonderful thing. Everyone should have to go through at least one side of it, whether or not they want kids. I think it just provides a little much needed perspective on the value of human life. What a tragedy it is to think that for every person who wastes their life on drugs or alcohol or the corrupt war we're fighting in Iraq right now, a mother had to bear them for at least 9 months through a journey fraught with dangers and risks at every turn. However, i myself feel very lucky to be with Gaibi through this as there is just something about a pregnant woman that glows unlike any substance in universe. When this woman is the love of your life, you have to wear sunglasses. Gaibi looks like she's stealing a watermelon when we go to the supermarket and we can see big kicks and punches when i play my guitar to her stomach at night. The midwife continues to say that Gaibi and the baby's health signs are 'perfect' and we don't have a car so riding her bike all-over town is certainly good prenatal exercise. I'll probably be taking a class with her soon which hopefully won't require me to simulate a man-birth or do any watercolor pictures of the womb.
And beyond that, life rolls on. We've had lots of guests, good and bad times, but things are finally starting to settle into some kind of jangled routine here in the house its truly beginning to feel like a home (the wood burning stove doesn't hurt. i watch it like television.)
Prayers to all of you shining people who persist in reading this.
-d
posted by derek at 7:53 PM
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