Work: Hers and His

Past few weeks have been sort of busy. I've been asked to sub off and on. Plus I am subbing Monday afternoons in the 2 year old room for the rest of the semester. I am enjoying it.
The second Monday that I subbed I was told by another worker "Miss K" that I need to take full control of the room because "you are the adult in the room". The first thought that went through my head was that I have hardly been in this room and didn't really know what was going on. Miss K went on to say that my helper is a teenager and should not be allowed to take over for me and that I needed to tell the kids that I was in charge. I spent about a week mulling over what she said. Meanwhile the a day or two later I saw the person I was subbing for with the kids. They were so quiet. (For me they were rambunctious and totally wild - it drained me to be with them). I went up to her and asked her how she kept the kids so quiet. Her answer "They do what they are told."
Well with what both ladies told me I continued to mull over it and to try to figure out a plan. My helper had told me the week before that we didn't need to pick up toys until 3:25 which left us 5 minutes to pick up toys and to line up for "snack". I decided that since I am "the adult" that I would change the timing around to suit me in keeping the kids under control. My helper didn't arrive until around 3:20 (I believe she's suppose to get in closer to 3:00). Well, my plan was to start picking up toys around 3:20. You should have seen her face when she came in and toys were being picked up. Well, I didn't let that bother me. Then I had every one sit down by the cubicles and I told my helper that I wanted to check for stinky diapers. Again she gave me a look of unbelief but I told her that I didn't want the kids to sit during snack like that. Then I stood in front of the kids from in middle of the room and started telling them what I expected of them. It sort of went like this.

I am Miss Corene. You are to listen to what Miss Corene says. We are going to Snack. At Snack there is no talking. Everyone is to be quiet. (I also told them that they need to listen to my helper too)

(Then I started asking yes/no questions that I had the kids answer out loud)
Are we going to be talking during Snack?
Do we eat our Snack?
Do we hit the person beside us?
Do we take Snack from the person beside us?
Do we drink our juice? etc and etc
During the whole entire time my helper was my constant echo.

After all my questions it was time to line them up. I decided on the spur of the moment that I was going to line them up girls then boys. Something that I don't think my helper has ever seen done before if I read her face correctly. Anyway I did this because the boys are always trying to be "first" and we have kids falling down in the shuffle. Surprisingly the boys and girls were very quiet. When we were leaving to go back to the room one boy rebelled about getting in line. My helper "solved" the problem by asking him if he wanted to go see the day care supervisor. I told her to go on into the room with the kids and I held the boy back to talk to him. He was scared of me because of what had been told to him but I calmed him down immediately by asking "do you want to be my little helper?" Instantly he gave me a big smile and said "Yes!". I told him the conditions - he had to obey and be quiet. If he did that he could help me pass out books. It ended up that he wasn't good (or at least that is what I was told). So I told him that during Book time he had to be good and quiet. He was very good and somewhat quiet so as a reward I let him help me pull out the next set of toys and help me dump them on the floor. Honestly I have hardly had any more problems from him. He still does disobey and sometimes is loud but all I have to do is look at him and he shapes up right away. For example: Yesterday we were outside, the boys were climbing up on top of this plastic car with a sun roof. I told them that I didn't want them to climb up on top of the car. (My reasoning was 1. I didn't want them to fall off and 2. there were younger boys who were trying to do the same thing that are weaker than the older boys). I said that if they climbed up onto the top of the car they would have to sit on the sidewalk. After a little bit they started climbing the car again. I remarked to them "remember what I said". The boy who became "my little helper" started saying "But I need to ... I don't want to sit on the sidewalk" and with that he jumped off the car. Then he told his friends "come on lets go". The boys never did climb the car again while we were outside. I felt like I had made a small accomplishment with him and I didn't even have to yell or punish him a lot.

Well, back to these "past few weeks have been sort of busy." Jesse was commissioned to build a computer for this man in our church. It turned out to be sort of a fiasco as Windows XP caused some major headache for Jesse. Jesse spent about two weeks or more working on the computer. During that time he spent around 3 or 4 days (not consecutively) up very late or should I say up very early. I believe that the latest / earliest was about 3 AM. He is now finally done with the computer. The last thing he had to fix was Internet Explorer. It wasn't working on one profile but was working on the others. While Jesse was trying to figure out what was wrong with this one profile I spoke up completely ready for Jesse to tell me that my idea wouldn't work. I said "If Internet Explorer works on these other profiles but doesn't work on this one, then why don't you take the files from this profile and copy them over to a new profile." His answer " You know if this works I ..." To make a long story short it worked!
Have a good weekend everyone.