I work hard(?) for the money

I have gotten completely spoiled by my part-time job. Generally speaking, I work 4 5-hour shifts each week. Often, at least one of those shifts is worked from home. This is awesome, and I know it. If I didn’t know it before, I do after yesterday. Yesterday, I worked a full day – 7 hours, 45 minutes. That is a whole fifteen minutes longer than a full day at my last job. Big whoop, right? But it damn near wiped me out.

I started off the day with storytime. Wednesday is my big storytime day. First comes Toddler Time. This went enormously well. The toddler group has finally started to blossom into something I can work with and be happy about. During the fall session, I never got more than 4 toddlers and their caregivers, which made it very difficult to get the kids to come out of their shells. Yesterday, I had 11 toddlers. Everybody was happy, and they knew it, and their faces surely showed it. They all danced during the shaker egg songs. They all colored during coloring time. Best of all, they all listened to the stories. Call me crazy, but Toddler Time was, by far, the highlight of both my previous jobs. The lack of toddler enthusiasm at SmallTown Library was seeping away my job satisfaction, so I am extremely psyched to see the crowd grow.

Immediately after the toddlers come the preschoolers. This went well, except for one child who, during the Hello Song, said, “Okay, okay, I get it. Let’s just do the story now.” Which, honestly, is kind of funny, and is also how I sometimes feel about the Hello Song, but this is the second week in a row that he has said it, so I had to tell him to please be polite. (A wrinkled brow, a shake of the head, and a “Please be polite,” are the equivalent, when I am in 'Miss Rachel' mode, of “Shut the hell up right now.” I would tell you what I do when I want to say "No, really, shut the hell up. Right. Now." but so far things have never gone that far. )

Once storytime was done and the craft table was clean, I had a few hours to prepare for a Gross Out program for school-age kids. There were a few scary moments when I thought that the slime recipe (which I have used before) wasn’t working, which would have served me right for not testing it sooner. I finally did get it to work, but then there were a few scarier moments when I realized that I didn’t have enough glue for all the children to make slime. This turned okay when I realized that it would be less messy for us to make one big batch together anyway.

Only six kids came to the program, but they had just gotten out of school and some of them had been served cupcakes at the end of the school day. They were good-natured though, and excited to make slime and talk about poop. We also made a film canister explode using Alka-Seltzer and water, as a slightly scientific illustration of what would happen to us if we didn’t burp or fart. Good times.

And that was my day. Now, three programs is more than average for one day, and school-age programs always wipe me out, but yesterday was ridiculous. I am still in my 20s. I have no children at home. I eat healthy foods. There is no reason for me to seriously consider going to bed at 7:30. The only conclusion to draw is that I am totally, completely spoiled by my five-hour days. I have never felt so lucky in my life.