Ninety-Three Reasons To Love Them

(I am an 18-year-old college student studying childcare, and as part of our course we do two or more days a week working in a childcare setting with children aged either infant to two, two to four, or five to seven years old. When this happens I’m talking to a group of children as we build a wall out of building blocks. There’s a two-and-a-half-year-old, a three-year-old with speech difficulties who understands other people fine but can’t talk particularly well, and two four-year-olds in the group. As we’re building, I’m encouraging the children to count the blocks, and the conversation turns to numbers and ages.)

Me: *points at each child in turn and they say how old they are* “So how old do you think I am?”

Two-Year-Old: *with a confident look on her face* “Seven!”

Me: “I’m a little older than seven. [Four-Year-Old #1]? How old do you think I am?”

Four-Year-Old #1: “Uh, twelve?”

Four-Year-Old #2: *shouts excitedly* “Ninety three!”

Me: *laughing a little at his excitement* “Nope, a little more than twelve but not quite ninety three. What do you think [Three-Year-Old]?”

Three-Year-Old: *shrugs her shoulders and makes a gesture that means I should tell them*

Me: “I’m eighteen!”

Three-Year-Old: *signs the sign for shock, gasps exaggeratedly, and falls over backwards pretending to faint and causing the other three to burst into giggles*

(It’s my last day this week after six months with these children, and while working with them can be a challenge I’ll never forget them and their incredibly vivid personalities.)