It should be to no one's surprise that there's many, many WTF or "oh shit" moments throughout my days. I often end my days wondering what parents hear at night from their kids about our days. For example, I received a text at 9 p.m. last night because a child was trying to describe "a MANY movie we watched with dogs and cats" and the parents had no clue what the child was talking about. I can imagine both parent and child were near tears when I received the text. I tried really hard not to laugh when I typed back "Oliver and Company" to solve the mystery.
There was a moment yesterday I was really happy that nothing came about. I almost beheaded our cat in the door....in front of every single daycare child.
When I set out our Polar Ice bin yesterday and added the ice cubes with toys, I decided snow would really make this complete. Thankfully I have a door leading to the backyard right in the daycare room (and only steps away from the sensory bin). I opened up the door and started to grab scoops of snow while the kids watched me excitedly.
I plopped mounds of snow in the bin as the kids happily and excitedly played with it. They were amazed at how quickly it melted in their warm hands. I was preoccupied with getting the sensory bin ready and making sure kids had their shirts off or sleeves up. A few minutes went by when I realized I was cold because I hadn't shut the outside door yet. I had my arms full of a 4 month old baby and casually kicked the door shut. Hard. Typically I wouldn't do it this way, but I figured I had every child in eyesight.
I was taken aback when the door bounced back at me. What the heck? I shifted the baby's weight to one arm and forced the door closed. It didn't even dawn on me to look down to check what was in the way because I knew it wasn't a little human. But it was a cat.
When I heard a terrifying yelp/yowl/screech come from the door, I paused shoving the door and looked down to see the cat's head caught in the door. I gasped as the cat ran away frazzled and scared. At this point my mind was racing.
Thank God the cat was running away with her head still attached. I KNOW her favorite place is sitting at this door when it's open and looking out at the backyard. Why didn't I think of this before I started trying to shove the door closed? Why would I not look down?
I almost feel that I got away with something because not one child noticed the cat in the door and me pushing it on her. They were all so engaged with the sensory bin that they didn't even think twice about me chasing after the cat saying "oh no! Sophia are you okay?" As if the cat could answer me.
Just think about what could have happened. I shudder to think about that text I would have had to send out, not to mention all of the questions I would have had to answer. I would be paying for therapy sessions for 8 kids. I'll count myself lucky that this wasn't a traumatic incident and that the cat is perfectly fine. She even sat and meowed at the door later in the day because she wanted me to open it for her. Brave or stupid cat I'm not sure. Either way, I'm still really happy I didn't have to explain beheading to a group of preschoolers. We'll save that for another day.
