My Nursery Experience

I am no stranger to the nursery program.  Ryan and I were nursery leaders in our ward in Provo for 6 months.  It was not uncommon for us to be the only adults in there with about ten kids.  But these were no ordinary children; they were first borns of BYU parents.  If you don't know what that means, I will explain.  One little girl would point and make an "oo-oo" sound, much like that of a monkey, indicating that she in fact wanted that particular toy.  One little boy would stand in the middle of the room, mouth partially open, with drool dribbling down his chin, and eventually onto his clothes.  We were warned when we first came into the nursery that he ate crayons, so he only got one during coloring time.  One day he was using a purple crayon, and the next thing I knew, he was drooling purple.  I wiped his face off with a paper towel and noticed chunks of crayon on his tongue.  I told him to open his mouth and I wiped off what I could.  There was another little boy who had a complete change in attitude when he came back from Christmas break.  He was a fairly mild mannered boy who turned into a terror.  He was taking toys from other kids, bashing their heads into the Fisher-Price play house, and hitting.  At one point I took him out of the room, sat him in my lap, and crossed my arms over him so that he couldn't move.  He wasn't too happy.  I tried to tell him that he wasn't being nice, blah blah blah.  Then Ryan popped his head out of the door and said, "It sure is fun in here without Isaac."  At the end of nursery that day, Isaac was the last one waiting for his parents.  Ryan then found it appropriate to say, "Isaac, do your parents not love you anymore?  Is that why they haven't come and picked you up?"  I'm pretty sure Isaac didn't know what was going on, so he should still grow up and be fine.  If anything, maybe he needed a little tough love now and then.

When we moved into this ward, we were called to work with Jessie.  We would often take her into the nursery because she liked to play with the toys and have singing time.  At that point, nursery wasn't so bad.  But it has changed.  On Sunday I got a call from Edwena asking if I would sub in nursery (thanks Julie).  As soon as I stepped foot in the door, there were about four kids crying their eyes out, one kid puked green puke all over the door, and there were toys everywhere.  The other leaders had their hands full with crying children, so I reluctantly wiped up the vomit.  Most of the kids turned out fine, they either stopped crying and found something to do, or would cry every once in a while and stop a few minutes later.  But there was one.  One boy who I had never seen before and who was the hellian of the nursery.  If he wanted a toy that someone else was playing with, he would yell "Mine" and try to take it away.  I got after him a few times for it.  He would then hit kids on their backs and faces, or grab their cheeks or back of their necks with his nails and fingers and squeeze and twist.  The other ladies weren't really punishing him at all, but when I got stern with him at one point, they said I could put him in time out.  Now, a quick side note.  I have no problem with discipline.  But, you never know how the nursery is going to be.  In Provo, you had to sanitize the kids hands before they ate their snacks.  We had to take the kids to the parents if they had to go potty.  And some parents didn't believe in a physical type of punishment.  That's why I didn't quite know how to handle the situation.  Anyways, I took him over to the corner and sat him down and told him he couldn't move.  I sat down next to him and started playing with another kid.  After only a couple of minutes, he started to cry louder and the nursery ladies asked, in a kind of guilt-filled hippie-parenting way, if I was going to let him out of time out.  So I did, even though he should have sat there for much longer because he went right back to being a jerk.  Then it was singing time and he did not want to participate.  We started without him and he stood up and said repeatedly, "No.  I don't want you to sing.  Stop it."  Needless to say, I was so relieved when the two hours were over and I could go home.