Friday, June 29, 2007

VBS

I really fell in love with VBS this week. From the kids to the activities to the songs, everything was absolutely amazing. I was put with the pre-k "runabouts" and we had 7 kids: John, Will, Owen, Hannah, Lucy, Abbi, and Olivia. I fell in love with all of them, but Hannah and I had a special bond.

Monday: John and Will were not there on Monday, but everyone else was. Olivia is the daughter of Heather, our group leader. Lyndsey is the other teen helper. Heather and Lyndsey took four of the kids up to the singing, and I stayed down with Hannah because she didn't want to go up to the singing. She really liked the puzzles so we built every single puzzle and then we played with the kitchen and then we played with the blocks, and then we played with pooh bear, and all of this was before anybody else came down. When everyone else started to come down, Hannah and Olivia and Abbi started to color, Owen started to play his hiding game, and Lucy played kitchen with Lyndsey. Since a lot of them were already coloring, we brought Owen and Lyndsey over to do crafts with us. The craft was making a treasure box and decorating it. I was sitting between Owen and Hannah. Owen spent his whole decorating time leaning on his box while coloring it black. Hannah put just about every jewel possible on hers. It was cute. Olivia, Lucy and Abbi did just about what Hannah did, only they also included markers in their decorations. Lyndsey decorated hers with jewels too. I didn't get to decorate mine until after everyone else had finished because I was helping Hannah glue on her beads, and she just kept coming at me with them. Then the girls all played some intense kitchen with Lyndsey while Owen continued hiding and I finished my box. At around 11 or so, we got out our snack and ate it. Oh...and while we were making the treasure boxes, Hannah's daddy came down to sing to us, which made Hannah want to go up and sing at the end. After we finished eating we all went up to the sanctuary but we were early so we went for a quick walk around the church first. The kids noticed the playground and wanted to go on it, so we promised them to go on it on Tuesday. We went back into the church and started singing. Hannah had a hugely fun time bouncing up and down and dancing. So did Abbi and Lucy, only thankfully they weren't jumping on me too.

Tuesday: Tuesday Heather and Olivia had a doctor's appointment and so we had this different lady as our leader, who treated the kids as if they had to hear a voice ten times higher pitched than usual in almost goo-goo talk, when they were in fact just fine with us talking in normal voices, or on occasion in funny accents, but I mean, a lot of people have this same idea that kids can't hear you unless you squeak your voice, so it wasn't her fault. Hannah, Owen, Will, John, Lucy, and Abbi were all there on Tuesday, so all of us went up to the sanctuary in the beginning. We had missed most of the before-drama singing, but the kids really enjoyed the drama that they did. I almost wish I got to see Monday's drama, but that's okay. Then after the drama and a little bit of singing, we all went back downstairs. We did the craft after a little bit of playing. The craft was to make sheep. It was funny because if they got a hold of the glue, they would put a whole ton of it on their sheep for the cotton to go on. But they were cute. I helped Abbi, John and Will mostly. Then the kids really wanted to go outside because they didn't get to on Monday, so we lined them up and took them out, Lyndsey grabbing the snack as we went. Hannah was the first to invite me to go down the slide with her, and so I attempted to go down with her on my lap. It actually worked out okay, 'cept for the fact that my shoes got caught on the slide. So I took them off and tried it again. Much better. Then everyone started taking their shoes off. Lucy and Will were the next to want to ride down on my lap, and so I spent the rest of the playground time having kids slide down on my lap, including the ones from the walk-about group like Hannah's brother Nathan. The kids ate the snack, rice crispy's, and Lyndsey and I went down to the Teen Lounge for a quick break from the kids. We were met with a lot of food and it made us happy 'cause we didn't get much up with the kids. We came back up for more lap rides down the slide until we had to leave. The little kids had trouble putting on their shoes, but my group put theirs on just fine, 'cept for Hannah who insisted they be put on for her. She's so spoiled by me. haha. Then everyone lined up and Lucy still didn't have her shoes on, so I told her she needed to put them on, but she said I couldn't look. So I turned around and waited about a minute and turned back around and she still didn't have them on. I was like Lucy everyone's all lined up come on and she was like "You can't look!" so I turned around yet again and turned back to find that they still weren't on. I told Lucy that she has to get them on because our group had already left so I turned back one last time and she put them on and we started to go. She then said "I did it without my hands, I used my magic." I couldn't help put smile, because I used to do silly things like that too. We got back to the room and Hannah had been crying because she lost a race to the room, but I gave her a hug and picked her up and told her that it's okay and stuff, and she felt better. Then we all went upstairs to sing.

Wednesday: Well, Wednesday was probably the most energetic day. We had the whole group of 7 kids and Heather, me, and Lyndsey. Will didn't go up to sing because he's sensitive to sounds and had trouble yesterday. Abbi and Lyndsey stayed with him and the rest of us went up. Owen did the same thing he always does, which was stand on the seat with his butt on the back in a semi-seated position making his funny faces. Lucy danced with Olivia, but Olivia mostly tried to just be held my her mother. I was left with Hannah because John sang with his mother in the back. Hannah loves singing, and she loves bouncing around when we're singing. It's really cute, actually. But you also have to watch her 'cause she'll randomly dive into one arm and expect that to hold her up and stuff. After the singing we went downstairs and the kids played a lot. We decided to go out to the playground early because it was really hot already. Well, the kids wanted to go on the big kids playground, which was fine since we didn't have any little kids on the playground next to us that would start crying in jealously from us being over there, so we took them there and they started to swing. There were three big kid swings and one baby swing, so the seven children took turns. Only Lucy knew how to swing, and she kept telling the others "If you wanna go as high as me you have to pump". It was cute. But we just pushed them and they seemed satisfied with the height to which they were pushed. Hannah wanted to ride in the little kid swing, probably because it was open since no one else wanted on it. So she got to stay on while the other kids switched. Soon, though, it was evident that every kid had sweat on them from the heat and we took them inside. Well, the kids ran inside and Hannah fell on her knee. It was bleeding, but it wasn't too bad, even from a kid's perspective, but she acted like it was really bad, so we tried to help her out. We cleaned it up and bandaged it, as well as got some ice for it so it didn't get a bump. Well, then she couldn't walk anywhere for the rest of VBS, and so I had to carry her to the kitchen to play kitchen and then when we started the craft I had to sit her on my lap because she couldn't sit on a seat herself (which was okay since we only had 8 seats and I wanted to sit down with the kids too, but didn't want to leave Lyndsey out.) The craft today was a banner. I made my banner with markers and drew all the kids in stick figure with the colors they were wearing today. I even drew Lyndsey and Heather. I helped Hannah and Will glue things onto their banners. Hannah then had to go to the bathroom so I carried her over to it and she said she could get it from there, but I guess since her knee hurt she didn't pull her pants down all the way, and even though she went to the bathroom, she still got her pants wet. Heather takes her pants off her and puts them into a bag. So Lyndsey was about to go find a pull up from the walk-about's room when Bob comes in to take the group picture with Hannah just wearing her shirt. It was long enough to cover her if she was standing, but unfortunately she couldn't stand so we attempted to try to sit her down without anything showing but it didn't work. So I put her on my lap behind the kids that were sitting so that she'd be higher up but still be sitting and hiding at the same time. Well, just as Bob was about to take the picture, Hannah grabbed my shirt and pulled it down. I don't know how far it went down, but Bob was like "Let's try to get another picture" so he might've just been saying that to get another one or it was a really bad picture haha. Well, then after Bob left we got the whole pull up thing situated and everything was under control. I set Hannah down on the floor near the playhouse while I cleaned up the kitchen with Lyndsey. It was almost time for singing. Hannah danced around in my arms because her knee still hurt.

Thursday: So Wednesday night I get really sore and so I take some medicine and then I take some more thursday morning, and it makes me really drowsy. So I was really tired. A lot of the kids were sleepy too. Abbi and Lucy laid down when we started singing. Hannah just wanted to be held, she didn't really dance. Will just showed up after the singing and Owen did his normal position while Olivia was being held my her mother. John didn't show up on Thursday. Thursday was water day for the bigger kids, so Heather grabbed some bubbles from her house for the kids to play with since we weren't participating in water day. We did our craft quickly because it was just a scroll. The kids colored on it and then we rolled them up. We ran out of the sticks and string, so I didn't roll mine, but that's okay. I really liked how easy things were going on Thursday, 'cept for we had a few diaper changes, but the kids played with the people and the blocks and stuff and were content. Hannah's knee was better, though she did come up to me and was like "My knee still hurts I can't walk" haha. I told her that she seemed to be doing fine walking without me carrying her. My arms were still really sore and I was tired of carrying children. Lucy was extra close to me on Thursday, trying to get me to hold her instead of Hannah and stuff, but like I said, I wasn't in the mood to carry any of the kids. I felt bad because the past three days I had carried Hannah anywhere she wanted to go and then when Lucy finally seems to want to be carried, I'm in too much pain to carry her. We went outside to blow bubbles. Lyndsey and I gave piggybacks to the kids since it didn't hurt our arms as much, and then when the bubbles were opened, Heather, Lyndsey and I blew them for the kids to chase. Owen spotted his mother through the window and decided he didn't want to play bubbles anymore. All the kids seemed to miss their parents more and more as the week wore on. It was cute how he kept saying "Momma Momma" through the window, and since he wasn't crying or anything we just let him be. The kids started to want to blow the bubbles on their own, and so Heather gave in first to her daughter, and I let Hannah blow some while Lyndsey let Abbi blow, and the kids took turns blowing their own bubbles. Hannah couldn't do it, but she was cute trying. I had to go to the bathroom and when I came back, all the kids had the bubbles all over them. It was cute. We went inside for the snack. It was that crackers and cheese thing, and I was the first to be like "I don't really like these" and so I got an extra cheese-it left over from the first day and then Hannah didn't like hers either so she got some cheese-its. After Will ate all but one of the crackers he wanted something different too, but we had run out of snacks, so everyone else just had to deal with it. They kids played some more and then we went upstairs to sing. Lucy and Hannah both wanted held, as well as Hannah's little brother, who isn't even in my group. My arms were so tired already I don't know why they tortured me like this. Hannah's brother started crying for his mother and so their leader took him to her and then Hannah wanted to go too. Her mom was on stage so as we were leaving I took Hannah up to her mother and waved goodbye, and Hannah started crying and ran after me. I felt really bad because I thought she had wanted her mother, and she did but she didn't realize that meant leaving me. It was too bad I was leaving her as soon as we got down to the room. I felt really really bad.

Friday: Ahh the last day. I had mixed feelings about the last day. As much as I loved the kids and loved doing VBS, my arms really needed a break. Umm...let's see. I got there before Heather and Olivia did, and so I wandered a bit. I went to the walk abouts room and the kids all seemed happy to see me. Their leader was like "You have such a way with kids. The way my group goes to you...it's amazing". I just smiled. Then Hannah's mother came down with Hannah looking for our group, and since I was in the hallway, I spotted her and was like "Hannah!" Her mother was like "This kid just loves you. You must spoil her" and I though that was cute too. Everyone was telling me how great I was with the kids, and it was making it harder to leave. I took Hannah with me into the room and Heather and Olivia showed up. None of other kids showed up so at like 9:10 we went upstairs. Most of the kids had started singing with their parents anyways. John wasn't there again. Hannah was sleepy so she just danced a little as I held her, but no one was really dancing. Lucy wanted held again, but Lucy was a bigger girl than Hannah and I could hardly hold Hannah. After the morning singing, we went downstairs to our room as usual and the kids started playing. The craft for Friday was a picture frame for the picture Bob took of us on Wednesday. It was cute, with Owen making his usual face and well, everyone looking like themselves except Hannah who was pouty. But that's expected considering what happened Wednesday. We decorated the frames, Lyndsey and I put everyone's name on ours, and then we put the picture in the frame. It was nice, and I actually finished before everyone was done. It helped that the kids started using the glue themselves. We went out to the playground after the craft and opened snack before they started playing. The little kids were out there, so we had to go into the little kids group, which was okay since there wasn't a snack table in the big kids playground anyways. But then after they attempted to eat their freezepops (attempted as in had trouble and then gave up), they all wanted to go to the big playground and so we took them over and the other group cried to come over and had to come over too. We just had to watch them extra carefully. It was nice and cool outside so we stayed out for longer, but then big kids came and wanted to use the playground so we rounded up the kids and left in a sort of evacuation type of way. It was funny a little. The kids played until we were gonna go up and sing. Lyndsey stayed down with Will and Abbi again. The toys were left out so Will and Lyndsey spent time cleaning them up. Bethany (Chris's sister) came to sit with us, which took the ease off of Lucy being all over me. Olivia danced with her mother, Owen made faces, Lucy was dancing with Bethany and that left Hannah all to me. She didn't seem to notice it was the last day. But she did start crying for her mother and so since she wasn't on stage we took her over to her mother. The one lady came back and said she was done, and I was really sad 'cause I didn't get to say bye to Hannah at all. But then we danced some more after the wrap-up talk about everything the kids did this week, and I was holding Lucy (she was a lot heavier than Hannah), and Hannah spotted me from her seat and ran up to me. It was really cute. So I felt bad that I had to put Lucy down, so I tried holding them both. Bethany thankfully took Lucy and I danced with Hannah. Then it was time to go, and we walked downstairs and I gave Hannah one last hug goodbye. As I was leaving she was like "See ya tomorrow" and I was like "Hannah this is our last day. VBS is over. I'll miss you" and she walked away really pouty, and I hope she didn't start crying.

I'm really really really going to miss VBS. The songs were so much fun and the dances were fun and the playground and the toys and the crafts and the kids and everything was sooo much fun. We're doing a VBS in West Virginia. I hope I get to do it everyday.

2 comments:

Tim Parenti said...

Whoa. I don't have time to read that all now, but I'm definitely going to read it later.

Looks like you had fun though, judging by the length!

Laurel said...

I'm glad you loved VBS! You will have to come and help with it next year as well. Maybe you can do a kindergarten group so you can be with hannah again.

I loved VBS this year. I always have loved it. It is definitely going to be different in WV because we are not with one group the entire time. But you will be able to do it everyday, you don't have to worry about that!