Shapoopi

Here I am in Rochester, Minnesota. That's the South-Eastern part of the state, and apparently it's colder than Maine. Who knew? It's landscape is hardly as dramatic as Block Island or quaint and aesthetically charming as Bath, and it certainly can't hold a candle to the Pennsylvania Wilds in early October, but it's growing on me. Reason number one: I have yet to pull into the somewhat smaller but ever so busy Hy-Vee Grocery store and found a cart NOT in the cart return. Location? Regionalism? It could be that there's a large number of teen-aged employees who take their job of cart gathering Very Seriously. In fact, I don't think I've ever been in the parking lot when someone WASN'T gathering carts. And yet, most of those times, it's been from the cart return. Where's St. Peter? Am I at the Pearly Gates already? Surely this can't be Heaven? And yet...there are days when it seems like a little slice.

For those of you wondering, I'm working as a 'teacher' at a local Daycare ("Learning") Center. 3 1/2 - 4 1/2 year olds. It's a challenging age group, but one I'm enjoying - well, until our new kid came in last week. Every class has to have a bully, I suppose, and ours is no exception now. Although this bully is supposed to be potty trained and it just doesn't seem to be happening. Three teachers and we're all drawing short straws to see who has to change the poopy undies. Now, I'm not adverse to helping out kids who've had accidents. But every day, one or two times a day, and a few wettings here and there. He consistently goes through every pair of pants his mother sends almost every day. There's icky. There's gross. And then there's him. At first I thought I was just a little too prissy to handle bowel movements (which I know not to be true. It's not pleasant, but I've proven to myself once or twice that I CAN handle it), but when the diehard, changes twenty diapers a day teacher is retching over the changing table because of this kid...well, you get the idea.

And it seems to amaze me that I can't handle the thought of this kid's bowel movements and yet I can look at my feet and say "Oh. Is that poop on the bathroom rug?" "Yes, mama" "We do that in the potty." "Okay." Okay. Done. Cleaned. No big deal. Anybody who knew me twenty years ago knows just how major that really is. And it is countered by the fact that my barely two year old son is going to the potty on a daily basis. Not that I'm bragging or anything.

But enough about bowel movements. I promsied Walker - who stays at the same daycare six hours just like me and is at a point where he really seems to like it - that we'd do the Hokey Pokey. Tomorrow's his music class and he wanted to practice.

St. Peter, is that you?