Nursery Duty

Well, I am back. My apologies for the hiatus.

Saturday night, C and I had nursery duty at the church we attend. If you use the nursery for your own child, you are asked to volunteer/serve in the nursery once every couple months. We figured that is fair, so we signed up.

I don't know what C expected, but I figured we would be in the same room as AB with a couple other adults. I was wrong. We were assigned the 18-24 month room. I saw on the assignment list that we were the only couple assigned to that room. It was then that I began to get a little nervous.

We were going to keep AB in the room with us, but when we were told that a max of 7 kids may be in the room, we decided that it would be better if she was in her own room. That turned out to be a smart choice.

We weren't given too much in terms of guidance when we got there. From the written instructions we were given, it was basically don't use bad tones of voice and change their diapers every hour (which meant once per kid). I was hoping for a little more once we got there, but we were basically thrown to the wolves.

I learned that separation anxiety is a pretty big deal for kids of this age. Of the 6 total we ended up getting (2 girls, 4 boys), 3 had the separation anxiety pretty bad. Basically, we would distract the kids, the parent would sneak out, the kid would turn around after a minute and realize mommy/daddy was not still standing there, and the kid would begin to cry. That is when the reality of what we were tasked with set in. There is nothing quite like comforting a kid you don't know. At first you feel weird, but then once the kid settles down and starts to trust you, it gets better and feels more comfortable.

There was one little boy that was super cute. Was wearing a bow tie, and seemed really cool. Had no separation anxiety or anything. But...this is what his mother tells us as she gets set to leave...paraphrasing...Z sometimes gets upset. When he does, he holds his breath, and he will pass out. He turns blue and everything. I just want to let you know this is alright (I am thinking ALRIGHT???? Your kids turns blue and passes out, and this is ALRIGHT????). Just make sure to place him on his stomach, and he will start breathing again and come to. This has not happened recently, but he does do this sometimes. I just like to let people know in case it does happen (I am thinking...what have I gotten myself into????)

At this point, I am ready to turn around and go home. Thankfully, Z stayed in good spirits for the hour and a half and decided to keep breathing the whole time.

Overall though, it was a good experience learning what having sextuplets would feel like. I could not imagine twins much less 6!!! C did all the diaper changes while I consoled the two girls who were crying. She did get stuck with the nastiest diaper ever according to her. She is a champ! The kids were cool too and provided some great entertainment. Made me look forward to when AB is that age.

It did feel good though when that first parent came to pick up her kid...that meant the others weren't far behind!