After a long, tiring day of school, I head over to work to wrangle all the children. I walk in the door and immediately want to leave. My ears are ringing the second I walk in, from the high pitched cries coming from the baby rooms to the older kids yelling over toys. My boss tells me what room to go in, which is always the annoying two year old room. All of the kids whine, cry and complain. They say “I want m&m, I want water, I want mom.” All I want is for the kids to be quiet and listen, but that is too much to ask apparently. 

You would think that three hours would pass by fast, but you are very wrong. Time passes by so slow; it is like a sloth is controlling the clock. After doing four-o-clock diapers because everyone else refuses to do it, I smell worse than the trash can overflowing with dirty diapers. Sometimes I think to myself, “Why did I decide to work at a daycare?” I love my job, do not get me wrong, but some days the stench of poopy diapers filling the bathrooms and the bleach stains on my clothes from all of the cleaning, makes me regret it. 

I love some of the kids at the daycare. Let me get it straight. I have about five favorite kids. There are about 175 kids in the whole center, does that say anything about the kids? Maybe it says something about me more than it does the kids. I am not necessarily picky about who I like and do not like, but being surrounded by the same kids who try to bite you every day for taking their toy away gets old. I know it sounds mean but if you were around some of these kids, you would understand. 

The three hours go by and it is time to clean, yay. There are many chores that need to be done like vacuuming, sweeping, wiping down not even remotely dirty windows. The most hated cleaning duty is bleach buckets. The bucket ¾ full of bleach, dripping down the sides, falling onto your new, grey, Nike sweatpants. Not to mention I ruined both pairs of my grey sweatpants from this job. 

It may seem like I hate everything about it, but this job has given me many new friendships that I am very grateful for, along with all of the kids I have met and grown bonds with. Being someone that the kids can trust is something that is very important to me. I want the kids to remember who I am and be comfortable around me. Even the days I hate going to work, the days I have to do the horrific bleach buckets and deal with the annoying two year old room, I am very thankful for this job and the many things it has taught me.