Tiny Tots

     It was shortly after Amanda was born and Sarah and I were at church one Sunday morning when one of the Mom's mentioned a program at the church called Tiny Tots. It was available several days a week from about 9 in the morning until 2PM. If you were a member of the church and were doing something there, say a meeting of some sort, you could drop off your child no matter how young, at Tiny Tots! And if your child was over the age of 2, you could leave the child while running errands around town! It was a great child care set up complete with arts and crafts, music, stories, and a wonderful caregiver.

     It had not occurred to me before that morning that I might ever want to take advantage of such a wonderful sounding program. But the more I thought about it, the more inviting it seemed – would Sarah want to spend time at Tiny Tots, away from me?

     With much misgiving, we went to the church one Tuesday morning around 9:30. It was all I could do to open the door to the room and go in – was I doing the right thing? I wanted children more than anything in the world – it would just be wrong to ask someone else to watch either of them for me for any length of time!

     Sarah ran to the little table and sat down and began coloring.

     I filled out the paperwork, stalling the time until I would walk out the door and leave Sarah there. I said goodbye and told Sarah we would be right back. Sarah said she was fine and began waving me away. Not waving goodbye, mind you, waving as if she were shooing a fly!

     With Amanda in my arms, I slowly made my way to the door. And we went through the door which then shut closed, but there was a window – I stared at Sarah's back – she did not turn around or look the least bit upset. We picked her up at noon. Then Sarah got upset – the other kids were staying, why did she have to leave?

     After that, Sarah went to Tiny Tots about once a week, sometimes more. She stayed until 2 o'clock except for the day when she did not believe me when I said we had stayed as late as the program allowed. Sarah insisted we sit there until the room was empty – she did not want to miss any fun because of me.

     The only time I left Amanda at Tiny Tots was one morning when there was a meeting of the women's group at the church. About an hour into the meeting, a woman came looking for me – she said that Amanda had not stopped crying since I had left her in the caretaker's arms! Oh my gosh! Not only had Amanda been crying for over an hour, but the Tiny Tots instructor had been holding her the whole time! I should have been flattered, thinking Well at least Amanda loves me enough to be upset if I leave her with someone else – except that it was such a difficult ordeal for the Tiny Tots lady and even more so for Amanda!

     My favorite Tiny Tots story has to do with one day after I picked Sarah up and we were in the car driving home. I asked, “How did things go today at Tiny Tots?” And Sarah said, “I had to sit in time-out.” Well that had me curious! “Why did you have to sit in time-out?”

     “The teacher asked us not to write on the chalkboard, and I did.......twice.”

     Once we got home, it became apparent that Sarah was upset about this – the fact that she had gotten into trouble. At one point she was so upset that we sat her down, and I said, “everyone gets into trouble at one time or another at school – you just need to own up to it, forgive yourself, and move on – otherwise you will be stuck thinking you are a bad kid!”

     Well Sarah did not hear the part about forgiving or moving on. All she heard was the part about everyone gets into trouble at school sometime – and her eyes lit up, and we could tell what was coming next,

     “What trouble did you get into when you were at school, Mom?”

     Oh my gosh, now I had to give her examples! All I could come up with was that teachers sometimes had to ask me to stop talking – I did have a tendency to chat with my neighbors. “But!” I said to Sarah, “It is wrong to talk in class – especially when the teacher is talking – you should not do it even though I did.”

     Perhaps someone else could give her something juicier. With eyes still lit up despite boring her with my answer, Sarah turned her head toward her father and asked, “Dad, what kind of trouble did you get into when you were at school?”

     The Lost in Space robot was flailing its arms at this point, “Danger, danger Will Robinson!!” what in the world was Dad going to say? Well, it was a third grade boy kind of story involving matches and a note home to his Mom and Dad and their laughing it all off.

    Sarah found the tale quite satisfying, and she was able to forgive herself and move on.

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