Although I prefer it to sitting in an office all day, spending fifty hours a week with six kids ages 3 and under, and occasionally their parents is not always easy. As I have stated in earlier posts, three year olds are especially difficult to relate to. They are easily frustrated and at times seem bipolar in how fast their moods change from one extreme to another.
Sometimes I look at these kids though--these kids I have gotten to know so well. I look at their little bodies and I want to freeze them in time. I want to keep them where they are: where the most emotional pain they feel is when their brother takes the ball they were using, or when they can't have the snack they want. They all have their families intact--mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters are alive and healthy. They aren't having identity issues, they aren't worried about their hair or their weight and hey aren't having their hearts broken by people they love. Their little worlds are nearly perfect, and they are completely unaware of anything happening outside of their homes.
I know that they can't go through life avoiding all pain or hardship. They'll have to face scarier things than the darkness of their room at night and more tragic things than the tower they built falling down. I just wish there was some way I could tell them to appreciate this time. Or a way I could prevent them from having to deal with anything that would hurt them. I guess that is life though, and that's how we become the people we are. For now, I will enjoy that innocence for them. I hope that some day, at least one of them will have a reflective experience similar to mine, that allows them to experience this gratitude I feel knowing that I too had that time of innocence.
