ball pit

You may not know I work at a child care. There's a two hour limit which makes us not a daycare, and I work mostly weekend days. We have this thing, it has a pen full of small rainbow balls and a slide. It is very similar to the ones McDonald's & Burger King all got rid of. I'll tell you why they got rid of them.

 On Saturday I arrived, it was 2:00 PM. The girl there working already was leaving, she says she's freaking out, she's alone with 8 kids. Then she took some time to tell me about how her dog has fleas. Fleas, three fleas, she's freaking out, she spends a lot of time describing the fleas, the dog, the fears she's having, have the fleas laid eggs. Finally she leaves, and I'm alone watching 8 kids.  Not freaked out in the least. Yet.

One group of 6 kids I know pretty well, they're playing nicely together on one side of the room, sitting around the table, playing with cars. There are two other children, brother and sister. I don't know them at all, but they're playing nicely as well. They are on the opposite side of the room, in this kid-size log cabin with a variety of toys and dolls. This is all fine and dandy till the little brother/sister duo I've never met gets in the ball pit and I notice they've brought toys into the ball pit.

Not allowed. No toys in the ball pit. I walk over and explain this to the children, fish out the toys and notice an odor. Unusual smells in a child care are fairly normal. This smell was weird. I stood there sniffing and the little boy stood there looking up at me. Do you have poopy pants I asked him, he nods no. The sister is smiling at me with a huge toothy grin. She seems older than him, so I ask, does he have any diapers? Does he have stinky pants? She falls backward in the balls and flops around in them. She only says, "We forgot our bag at home." This was the last phrase she uttered the rest of the time I interacted with her. It wasn't even the truth, their bag was on a shelf.

In the midst of my one sided conversation with these kids I'm thinking, wishful thinking, maybe they just ate dinner, like maybe I'm smelling someone else's spaghetti or something. To tell the truth, I think everybody who stinks smells like someone else's spaghetti. Well, either that or they stink like Sour Clothes - you know, when they left it in the washer too long before they dried them. I smell this too sometimes when a restaurant wipes the table with a sour rag. Either/Or. Never anything else. Well, except there's Expired Granny Perfume, but that's not really offensive in the same way, just the Oh Holy Grandma Moses I Can Smell You All Over Wal Mart sort of way. My own son smells like spaghetti, though, when he has smelly armpits. It's like my brain made some kind of adjustment so I don't have to think of unpleasantness. I don't even have anything against spaghetti but that's what I think I smell when I'm really smelling armpits, or apparently, other children who have crap up their back.

I'm thinking these thoughts and looking at these kids and realizing things don't look right. Nothing looks right.. What's that stuff? I fish the little boy out of the ball pit and look down the back of his pants. He has shat himself, it is fluffy greenish up his back, completely coating his underwear. Ugh. It is dawning on me. I'm slow but I'm making some connections. I look again at the sister, and start looking around the room. There's a clump of poop on the floor by the log cabin. There's some stuck to the side of the ball pit. How did it splash up there? What is going on? I shit you not. Suddenly the Red Alert starts flashing in my brain. There is poop on the balls. I head for the rubber glove supply wondering how to handle a bio-hazard while simultaneously supervising 8 little kids. I  start texting the child care manager, help! poop diarrhea everywhere kid pooped pants it dripped out! (2:17 PM)

I carry the little boy to the middle of the room and set him down on his feet, asking where is your bag? He says nothing. Sister follows, she just smiles really big. What's wrong with this kid? I decide really, I don't think I'm going to change him, I think I'll page the mom to come do this. I'm thinking these things in my head as a woman walks in with a little blonde girl.

She comes up as I'm looking on the list of kids and parent names for who I should page to come clean up her little poop factory, so I back away for a second so she can sign-in her daughter, (she writes 2:12) and I start telling the 6 other kids to stay away from the ball pit. Poop! They immediately run towards the ball pit. Nooo! Come back, seriously, in my firm voice, stay on this side of the room. Hoping nobody stepped in the poop. I grab a paper towel and lay it over the nearest splat of poop on the floor.  My mgr. texts back, wondering what the poop is on. (2:19) The little boy and his newly mute sister run toward the lady, and I realize this is the mom. What luck. I ask her, Do you have a bag for them? They aren't talking and he really has a big problem in his pants. Mom doesn't speak either apparently. She just looks at me, grabs the kid and a bag off the shelf, and leaves for our restroom.

The little blonde girl, this extra sister, can talk. She looks at me and says He has diarrhea just like I do!  I have this ah-hah moment where I get sort of angry. If two of your kids have diarrhea, really why would you bring them to play with other kids? Why would you leave him in underpants? Sure, make whatever excuses you want, but honestly, poop is just not my thing. There are no excuses.

I start to really look at the first sister and it dawns on me, she looks a little dirty. I realize, the first sister has poop all over her body. I hand her a box of wipes, here, take this to your mother, she can wipe you off. Wait, take off your socks, what if you stepped in the poop. She doesn't move. She stands still. Silent. Lift up your foot. Seriously, I'm sorry, your socks need to come off, let me help you. She doesn't move. I shuck off the girl's socks and push her towards the restroom where her mother is cleaning up the brother. She comes back slightly cleaner but the mom's kept the wipes.

Immediately following that little interaction, another boy says he needs to go pee. Of course you do. There's no place for him to go, but I'm holding the door so he can stand in the hallway, where I loudly tell him he needs to wait till the mom is done cleaning up her son, and wait for the mom to get out of the restroom, texting my mgr. that I'm having her take them home. (2:20) She texts back she's on her way. (2:21)

I keep having to take off my rubber gloves so I can text.

Finally after what feels like hours but was possibly only a few minutes, the mom comes back with the kid in clean clothes, I'm still trying to plan how to get the floor cleaned up. I've dragged rocking chairs over to form a barrier between the, and the poop and the 6 clean/healthy kids. I don't quarantine the extra sister. I tell her she should take her children home, they're clearly sick. She doesn't argue or say anything to me at all, she just puts the kids' shoes on their feet, she signs them out (she writes 2:22), and they leave.

I line the remaining healthy 6 up and start squirting hand sanitizer in each hand. Here, rub this together. They know the drill. Then I shoo them back over to where they were playing, and begin looking for carpet cleaner. I pick up the poop with paper towels and squirt the spots with the cleaner. The mgr. arrives while I'm explaining to a pregnant mom there was a diarrhea problem and she should take her healthy kids home and wash wash wash. We start cleaning out the ball pit. Balls go in big bags, but first we take out the obviously poopy ones and put them in a bucket. Later we just decided to throw all the smeary ones away. I put a big sign on the bags:

 [Danger! Poop! Use Extra Bleach.]

I don't think I get paid enough for that.

I think I'm still in shock.

This, kids, is why McDonald's and Burger King don't have ball pits anymore.