Christmas Eve

This Christmas Eve, the girls and I decided to volunteer in the church nursery for the 2:30 service, then we would meet up with the menfolk and attend the 4:00 service.

When we arrived at the church for our volunteer time, Emily was sent to the baby room, while Katie and I were assigned the two to four year olds.

We only had four children in our room.  One four-year old girl and three two-year olds.  We had all of them sit at a table and gave them all a snack and a drink.  In the falsely cheerful voice that I use when talking to a group of very young kids who have just been forcibly separated from their parents I announced, "Wow!  We have four big kids in here!"

The four-year old girl looked at me steadily and said, "No.  You have one big kid in here and that's me."  She pointed at herself, then continued on, pointing at the other three, "They're little."

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A short time later, one of the two-year olds was running across the room, fell, and busted his lip wide open.

Head wounds bleed a lot.

At first I couldn't tell if he'd busted his lip, bitten his tongue, or knocked out a tooth.  Blood was just bubbling out of him and he was screaming and fighting us.  I had Katie run to grab paper towels, then she had to grab more when those were soaked through, then she had to grab more when those were soaked through, then she had to grab more when those were soaked through.  We went through around five large wads of paper towels.  While running back and forth to get the paper towels for me, Katie knocked over one of the two-year old girls, so then she had a crying child on her hip while trying to help me and the childcare director who had dashed in upon hearing the chaos.

We finally got the bleeding slowed and someone took him off to find his mom.

I looked down at myself to find both of my arms smeared with blood all the way to the elbows.  Blood was in between each of my fingers on both hands and blood was on the front of my nice blouse.  I started scrubbing like I was prepping for surgery.

One of the directors came in with cleaning wipes to clean the blood off the floor, counters, tables, and sink.  I pulled one of the wipes out and started vigorously wiping the front of my blue blouse hoping to get enough blood out so it wouldn't be noticeable during the next service.

The director noticed me wiping my shirt and informed me, "Those are Clorox wipes."

Great.

I don't think God wants me to work in the church nursery any more.