Banned From The Back Yard

Yesterday I felt a bit out of sorts pretty much all day. It wasn't something that was centred in my stomach, or a pain in my head, it was more of an all over discomfort. Something just wasn't right.

All day long I was forgetting things. This afternoon I remembered how one child told me that they wake up in the night because they can hear noises coming from their parent's bedroom. Not television sorts of noises. Not talking sorts of noises. Not fighting sorts of noises. Loving sorts of noises. It's stopping them from sleeping. I can't for the life of me remember who it is, but I thought that it was pretty funny. Maybe the kid's parents were working on an addition to the family?

In the end I had a big sleep last night. I think that it was around 11 hours. I could easily have gone for a couple more. But I had to get up and go to work. Which was okay.

So today was a much better day. I was back on form. I even managed to get a couple of kids to cry again today!

One of them is this boy who can be very frustrating. He persistently makes poor choices. He also doesn't like facing the consequences of his poor choices. Today I was keeping an eye on his room during the rest period of the day, and recently I was shown a technique that has been used in the past that will get him to sleep. I should have used the trick today, because he was being a rude little shit. Except I didn't. The reason why I didn't use the trick is that it doesn't look the best.

What you have to do is get him to lie on his bed on his belly. You put his arms down by his side, and his legs straight out. You put his head to one side and sit next to him on a chair. Then you cover his face with a sheet. The first time I saw it done I was reminded of the prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison. It doesn't look too good. The way that it works though is that this boy needs it to be very dark with no distractions. Otherwise his mind just can't slow down long enough to go to sleep. This trick works every time apparently, and only takes five minutes. Of course as soon as he is asleep you take the sheet off his face so that he no longer looks like an sensory deprived inmate (which I guess in a way he is).

I didn't do it today, and I kind of regret it. If I'd done it he wouldn't have had the opportunity to make the poor choices that he did. And he would have been a whole lot less distressed. Me too.

There was some other stuff I was going to talk about today, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is. Maybe I need another 11 hours sleep?

Tomorrow is the Mother's Day morning tea at work, so I've got to be there a little bit early so that I can make some delicious sandwiches. Last year we had a great turn out, and I hope that that is the case again this year.