Warning: Graphic (yet funny) Imagery Ahead
So I know that every job has its weird occurrences (I mean, just imagine working for minimum wage in California and a woman coming up to you with a finger in her chili), but when you work with kids, you open yourself up for a lot more, and weirder, events. I work at a gym coaching gymnastics (non-competitive), leading birthday parties, and working summer gymnastics camps. I have been at this gym over a year and it's the first real I've ever had. I plan to major in Education in college, so it is probably best that I learn all this weird stuff now. But in the past year, I have seen really weird stuff. Did you know that 3 year olds have "clothing issues?" They do, they can't seem to keep them on, no matter where they are or who they are with. It could be a boy coming out of the bathroom with underwear in one hand and pants in the other ("Miss Emily, I'm done!"), or how about a girl who said it was too hot in the gym to have pants on. Or, my personal favorite, a boy coming out of the bathroom into the gym (luckily the other kids had just been moved into the snack room) completely naked and running very, very quickly. It took me a while to catch him, and if you knew the gym I was talking about, you would know about the very large picture windows looking out to the rest of the shopping center. There is something about 3 year olds. They are certainly fun, though.
On Wednesdays, I co-coach an advanced class. I love teaching this class because it is more about the gymnastics and less about...well, nakedness or babysitting. Now, I co-coach this class, the other coach is the owner of the gym, my boss. Let's just call him "One who pays the bills" (or OWPB for short). OWPB has two really cute grandkids, which he sometimes brings to the gym; on normal days, they are cute, participate in classes, and watch some TV. However, Wednesday was anything but normal. It started with blood, and ended with oatmeal. I'm not making this up.
Because the gym is non-competitive, we just have a show for the parents so they can see what their hard-earned money is doing. Wednesday was the show. After showing floor routines, we moved over to the beam, where some of the girls decided to sit on the parallel bars that had been made un-parallel so they could watch. When parallel bars are un-parallel, there isn't much space between them. As the first girl preformed her beam routine, I watched another girl smash her face into the lower bar. I ran over to the injured girl and noticed lots of blood coming from her nose. I moved her to the bathroom and her mother came over, I spent a while getting ice, checking on the girl, and spotting a few cartwheels in-between. I don't handle the sight of blood very well, but I am better at handling it if I know someone is injured (that sounds stupid, but don't worry, it will make sense). Later, however, when cleaning the bathroom I could barely stand to look at the bloody paper towels. The thing I have the biggest problem with is hearing people cry or scream because of injuries. Luckily, this girl wasn't crying... too loudly.
Now I can hear everyone asking, "Why would you clean the bathroom if you knew it was going to make you sick, Emoney?" Mostly because that was just one event of the day.
I do have a strong stomach for....ah...."other" bodily fluids. This is probably good seeing as during summer camps, we have lots of accidents and spare clothes (especially pants) are normally in high demand. After the unfortunate nose incident, I started to find what I like to call surprises or gifts around the gym. Of course, this is the day all the parents/grandparents/siblings are in the gym. After finding the culprit, OWPB's grandson (3 years old), I picked him (lets call him situation #2, or S2 for short) up and put him in the other bathroom. I went to pick up the surprises and when I came back to check on S2 (within 3 minutes) he had successfully splashed all the water out of the toilet onto the floor. I couldn't do much, so I just finished cleaning up and then came back to him. As I walked out of the bathroom to get his clothes, his sister, S3, told me she had an accident. Luckily, the bloody nose had just left to go to the doctor, so S3 got her own bathroom... floor to pee on. I came back (of course with the wrong bag) and ended up realizing exactly what was on the floor around S3 and changed her quickly and sent her back to the gym. Now I had S2 left. I ended up carrying him naked into the lobby to find and change his clothes. Now S2 and S3 are safely in the gym so I can start cleaning. In my bare feet.
But there are 4 situations in this story and surely you want to know about the oatmeal. Just as I finished wiping down the bathrooms and mopping both floors, S3 comes and say to me "Come see what S2 has done!" Oh geeze. In the snack room I found a floor covered with beads, dry pasta, yellow paint, and oatmeal. I started to clean it up when a woman came and complained to me that the floor was wet in the bathroom. She has no idea...I could have left it wet with something else. My boss came in and saw the mess (my advanced class was long over), and scattered S2 and S3 to the lobby. We started cleaning when someone came and told us "two children in the lobby are bathing in the hand sanitizer and destroying magazines." OWPB and I stopped them, and then he took them home (thank goodness, they were winning!). This at least gave me time to clean without having to stop to clean up something else.
All in all, it was the craziest day. The gym coordinator (GC) had asked me earlier if I could stay a little after my class and fold brochures. Hope GC doesn't mind that I only folded about 20.
And another thing, I have noticed that I am on an injury streak. That is the 2nd injury under my watch in a month. In all the time I have worked there, I have sent 3 kids to the hospital. Eek. I'm competent, really I am.
When I got home (1 1/2 hours late) I could barely tell my mother this story because I was laughing so hard.
On Wednesdays, I co-coach an advanced class. I love teaching this class because it is more about the gymnastics and less about...well, nakedness or babysitting. Now, I co-coach this class, the other coach is the owner of the gym, my boss. Let's just call him "One who pays the bills" (or OWPB for short). OWPB has two really cute grandkids, which he sometimes brings to the gym; on normal days, they are cute, participate in classes, and watch some TV. However, Wednesday was anything but normal. It started with blood, and ended with oatmeal. I'm not making this up.
Because the gym is non-competitive, we just have a show for the parents so they can see what their hard-earned money is doing. Wednesday was the show. After showing floor routines, we moved over to the beam, where some of the girls decided to sit on the parallel bars that had been made un-parallel so they could watch. When parallel bars are un-parallel, there isn't much space between them. As the first girl preformed her beam routine, I watched another girl smash her face into the lower bar. I ran over to the injured girl and noticed lots of blood coming from her nose. I moved her to the bathroom and her mother came over, I spent a while getting ice, checking on the girl, and spotting a few cartwheels in-between. I don't handle the sight of blood very well, but I am better at handling it if I know someone is injured (that sounds stupid, but don't worry, it will make sense). Later, however, when cleaning the bathroom I could barely stand to look at the bloody paper towels. The thing I have the biggest problem with is hearing people cry or scream because of injuries. Luckily, this girl wasn't crying... too loudly.
Now I can hear everyone asking, "Why would you clean the bathroom if you knew it was going to make you sick, Emoney?" Mostly because that was just one event of the day.
I do have a strong stomach for....ah...."other" bodily fluids. This is probably good seeing as during summer camps, we have lots of accidents and spare clothes (especially pants) are normally in high demand. After the unfortunate nose incident, I started to find what I like to call surprises or gifts around the gym. Of course, this is the day all the parents/grandparents/siblings are in the gym. After finding the culprit, OWPB's grandson (3 years old), I picked him (lets call him situation #2, or S2 for short) up and put him in the other bathroom. I went to pick up the surprises and when I came back to check on S2 (within 3 minutes) he had successfully splashed all the water out of the toilet onto the floor. I couldn't do much, so I just finished cleaning up and then came back to him. As I walked out of the bathroom to get his clothes, his sister, S3, told me she had an accident. Luckily, the bloody nose had just left to go to the doctor, so S3 got her own bathroom... floor to pee on. I came back (of course with the wrong bag) and ended up realizing exactly what was on the floor around S3 and changed her quickly and sent her back to the gym. Now I had S2 left. I ended up carrying him naked into the lobby to find and change his clothes. Now S2 and S3 are safely in the gym so I can start cleaning. In my bare feet.
But there are 4 situations in this story and surely you want to know about the oatmeal. Just as I finished wiping down the bathrooms and mopping both floors, S3 comes and say to me "Come see what S2 has done!" Oh geeze. In the snack room I found a floor covered with beads, dry pasta, yellow paint, and oatmeal. I started to clean it up when a woman came and complained to me that the floor was wet in the bathroom. She has no idea...I could have left it wet with something else. My boss came in and saw the mess (my advanced class was long over), and scattered S2 and S3 to the lobby. We started cleaning when someone came and told us "two children in the lobby are bathing in the hand sanitizer and destroying magazines." OWPB and I stopped them, and then he took them home (thank goodness, they were winning!). This at least gave me time to clean without having to stop to clean up something else.
All in all, it was the craziest day. The gym coordinator (GC) had asked me earlier if I could stay a little after my class and fold brochures. Hope GC doesn't mind that I only folded about 20.
And another thing, I have noticed that I am on an injury streak. That is the 2nd injury under my watch in a month. In all the time I have worked there, I have sent 3 kids to the hospital. Eek. I'm competent, really I am.
When I got home (1 1/2 hours late) I could barely tell my mother this story because I was laughing so hard.
posted by Emoney at 12:38 AM
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