When I was working in Room 105 with the wee ones, we had 2 mostly unscratched, somewhat useable nap appropriate CDs: Time Life guitar renditions of easy listening songs and Enya’s “The Memory of Trees.” I’m a huge fan of most things Irish or Celtic so I preferred Enya on repeat over guitar renditions of “More Than Words” and “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)” playing continuously over two hours of napping. When I left CHCC in May I got a Beatles Lullaby CD as a going away gift along with “In the Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak. Musical and literary revolutionary, I was!

Anyway, the situation in 101 is pretty different. The lead teacher has amassed an endless supply of CDs, several of which are lullaby CDs. She does have 4 or 5 that she favors and they certainly aren’t bad. Sometimes I shudder at Michael Bolton’s rendition of Edelweiss, but only because it reminds me of a night where CB mumbled the tune under his breath spontaneously throughout the night. Funny? Yes. Annoying? Much more so than funny. Sometimes I cry at that Butterfly Kisses song (the cliche-ness of that song makes the sneering cynic in me a bit queasy, so don’t tell anyone that it chokes me up and makes me want to give my own dad a huge hug every time I hear it). There was actually one song that I insisted on looking up the lyrics for, simply because I could swear I heard the words “washing machine” in it and absolutely had to know the context of the phrase within a lullaby.
Suffice it to say, I am much more mentally stimulated by this naptime repertoire, in contrast to the prior routine tunes from 105. Interestingly enough, I noticed today, and not for the first time, that I keep hearing about cake in lullabies. In one of the lullabies (All the Pretty Little Horses)today I heard the refrain, “when you wake, we’ll have cake” and yesterday’s CD had a song (Fais Dodo) that said, “go to sleep, you’ll have a treat….mama makes a cake…”

Seriously yo, why are we bribing our children to sleep with cake? I find that to be a somewhat strange and sabotaging spin on the whole nap time concept. You sleep and we will feed you sugar laden , hydrogenated oil soaked blocks of artificial love. Damn.

Another thing that sort of impressed me was that everything I linked to here, I was able to find via internet just by entering a few lyrics I managed to remember into Google. I ♥ Google. I’m also going to openly praise my memory for random details. Mind you, I have absolutely no ability to remember anything important (see here), but when it comes to tiny, insignificant details, I’m a gleaming steel trap baby! Oh and yeah, so, like, if anyone knows a way to get paid as a freelance internet researcher, I think this post certainly gives a glimpse of some unearthed potential that is begging to be tapped.

No, really.

Today I hate my name. The children. The children have made me hate the very sound of my name. No matter what I did, where I turned, what was going on, every single one of the 21 preschoolers in Room 101 did nothing but squawk, scream, whine, cry, giggle, gurgle, or call my name. All. Day. Long.
“Kooooorieeeeee”
“Kowie! Kowie! Look at me!”
“Korie!”
“KorieKorieKorieKorieKorieKorieKorieKorie”

On and on and on until I actually cringed at the sound of my own name.
Why? Why is it that these small, grubby, demanding creatures find it so very crucial to show me every single thing they do? Why must they seek me out to tell me each specific detail of every minute of their day?

“Korie, I’m so sweaty, I was running so fast!”
“Yes Squirt, I was sitting on the bench…remember I asked you not to spit on people while you were running?”

“Kooowie! Come here! Look what I can do. It’s vewy dangewous.”
following APRF over to the climber…
“Oh,yes, um, that one step is very high off the ground….very dangerous. Be careful up there.”

“Korie, Korie I peed!”
“Yeah, so, flush and wash your hands.”
“But, I can’t!”
“Sure you can Dresden, just try.”
“No you have to come see it first.”
“Oh! Of course…..oh, look! It’s yellow. With toilet paper in it. Wow! Now flush it. Really.”

“Korie, sit heaw.”
“Not right now, Sit Here, I’m trying to write notes for mommies and daddies.”
“You sit with me for nap?”
“Yes. I sit with you for nap every day.”
“I hold your hand.”
“Yes, hun, I hold your hand all the time.”
“Korie?”
“Yeah?”
“Sit heaw.”

AAARRRGGGHHHH.