Attack of the Snoterpillars

The work of being a child care provider can feel effortless; drifting along with the ebb and flow of the children’s wants and needs, things just kind of work. I sense from across the room that two-year-olds Noah and Kia are ready for a fresh activity, so I suggest that if they pick up the connecting beads, I will get out the paper and markers so they can do some writing. Then the tone of five-month-old Marygrace’s babbling tells me that she is ready for a nap; her once happy “da, da, da’s” have taken on a harsher quality and I can see stress building in her bright blue eyes. By the time I have her swaddled, her eyelids are heavy with sleep. Almost-three-year-old Ty struts over with a book and commands, “Read it!”, and I do...over and over again. At times caregiving can be easy, or at least look that way.

The reality is that child care is challenging even when things look like they are going smooth. It is also true that every provider has at least one thing that stresses them out or makes the job more difficult. For me, it’s snoterpillars.

We were enjoying a morning snack of homemade banana bread--still warm from the oven--and milk. Things are going along fine until one-year-old Sam sneezed. I looked just in time to see them appear: two big, thick, green snoterpillars stretching from his nose to his upper lip. They gazed at me across the table, quaking as Sam gnawed away at a hunk of banana bread. He was oblivious to their existence, as were the rest of the kids.

I rushed for a tissue as I heard him cough. Most of the time he coughs with his mouth wide open, so I expected to turn around and see banana bread spraying out of his face. What I saw was much worse. He had coughed with his mouth closed, which meant air was expelled from his nose. This meant the two snoterpillars had ballooned into giant, glistening, translucent snot bubbles which were covered in banana bread crumbs from around his mouth.

I stood there, tissue in hand, unable to move. I was repulsed, but I couldn’t look away; I was disgusted, but mesmerized. It seemed like time stood still for hours, but the bubbles lasted less than a second. Sam inhaled and they were sucked back into his cute little nose. Then he sneezed again and the snoterpillars stretched to his chin. I shook free of my momentary paralysis and somersaulted across the table with the out stretched tissue in one hand and my trusted antibacterial-photon-powered-sanitizing-blaster in the other. I captured the attacking snoterpillars in mid flip and landed silently on the other side of the room as the kids ate on; unaware I had just saved all of them...and possibly the world...from the evil invaders. (I’ve been told by my wonderful wife, Tasha, that I may have exaggerated just a bit, but we all experience and remember things in our own way. I stand by my memory of the event.)

You see, The stuff that stresses other providers--the long hours, the noise, the parents, the generally poor pay and benefits, the regulations, and so much more--doesn’t bother me as much as all the stuff that can leak, squirt, or spray out of the kid. The diaper blowouts, the drool, and the snoterpillars are what stress me out the most.

“So”, you may be thinking, “what’s the point of this lovely tale of snot and banana bread?” Well, the point is that we all have things about our careers as caregivers that get to us; things that make us wonder how we ever ended up in this profession and maybe make us think about leaving the field altogether. The things about caregiving that get under you skin impact the way you do the job. If you let them, they will start affecting your relationships with the children in care and the quality of your early learning environment. To be fully there for the children, you need to learn to be fully there for yourself; dealing with the stuff that causes you stress or anxiety. To keep doing the job well, we need to be able to give a name to those things AND figure out how we can learn to deal with them effectively. We need to learn how to handle the tough times and create more of the good times. We must define our individual problems and find our personal answers so that we can continue to go with the flow of the job.

My biggest problem is that all the stuff leaking and dripping from the children makes my stomach churn. What’s my personal answer? We’ll, first I play dumb and give Tasha every chance to handle the icky stuff since she has a higher tolerance for all the ooey-gooeyness. When that fails, I look at all the snot, poo, and drool as invading alien life forms out to take over our solar system...and myself as a superhero protecting humankind.

Hey, it works for me. You have to find your own answers.