Punishment for Miss Sassy Pants

God punished me today for my sassy attitude yesterday. I thought I'd done a pretty good job of punishing myself with a guilt trip, but today I was sent on another trip... to the Funny Farm.

Today was the first day of MOMs -- the all-day childcare the church sets up for mothers who hold Bible studies in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon for them to run errands without the munchkins in tow. Ninety-something signed up. We ended up with 120 children. It was semi-controlled chaos.

I purposely didn't want to know what age-group I'd been assigned to. Secretly, I was hoping to work with the older boys (5-12 yrs), but I said I was okay with wherever I was put. Please God, just not the two-year-olds. Though I love all ages of children, toddlers and teens are by far the most difficult to work with.

Guess where I was placed? That's right, the two-year-olds. One mother came in with her little girl, who is deathly allergic to a myriad of substances, including peanuts, wheat, latex, and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember. I was terrified as I heard of what could happen to this little girl if she was to come in contact with any of the mentioned substances. Thankfully, the mother planned to stay with her the first couple of weeks to keep an eye open and for us workers to learn the protocol.

Then another little girl came in, also deathly allergic to peanuts. I nodded my head with knit brows as her mother instructed me as what to do should one of the other children bring a meal with peanut products -- scour every child's hands and face, rinse their mouths out so they don't drool peanut goo on the toys, sanitize everything. My horror intensified as she demonstrated how to use the Epi-pen and call 911 should anything happen.

Of course, most of the children (being two and all) were suffering from separation anxiety and acting in an according manner -- screaming.

"Carey, the 12-month room is short a worker, can you transfer?" A co-worker popped her head in the room.

"Yeah, sure." But the situation awaiting me was even worse. Seventeen children, all crying and screaming simultaneously. It lasted almost all morning, with brief 5-second intervals of silence spotted here and there. By lunchtime I felt like the Walking Dead. 50% of my hearing lost, I prepared for another room change as we shuffled the remaining children to extended afternoon care. I was assigned to... one-year-olds.

Thankfully, I was assigned to a room with my mom and our friend Sylvia (from Guatemala). Working with my mom and adopted "aunt" Sylvia would make things much better. We only had six kids and they all took naps. We actually got to eat some lunch and chat for a while before I went to play with the older kids for the last hour.

"This must be God's way of punishing me for not being kind yesterday," I told Mom.

"Yeah, but why did Sylvia and I get punished with screaming kids today? We didn't do anything."

"That's because you're associated with me," I said as a matter-of-fact.