Please. Do not send gloves

by shesactuallyprettysmart

I know, I know.

They are cute.  They are fun. They are fashionable.. and gloves come in so many funky colours and styles today.

And sure, I understand, “Ashley really wanted them” and “she can almost do them all by herself”..

No, she can’t.

Or even better,

Marvellous.  She can put them on ’til her heart’s content – at home.

At my daycare “Ashley” is one of 6 children.  Cold weather has arrived and so has the many layers of clothing needed to have an enjoyable time outdoors. We all know that we can’t have one without the other.  Like peanut butter and jam.  Cold weather and lots of layers.  I personally would opt for bikinis all year, however, somehow I apparently didn’t have the proper mindset for this when deciding where I would put my roots down for this portion of my life.  Ahh hindsight…

Caught dreaming, excuse me, may happen from time to time.  Actually, dreaming is how I chalk it up to having kept my sanity for this long in the home daycare environment.  How else does one escape those horrible not-so glam moments?

Now back on topic.

Gloves.    (and any other cute, whimsy, pernickety item of clothing that children insist on doing themselves and may take a competent adult a ridiculous amount of time to master)

Leave them at home.

I will cut right to the chase.  As mentioned above, every day I have 6 children under the age of 5yrs to tackle getting dressed for the cold weather and snow.  By myself.

We are in no particular hurry, as I feel childhood should not be plagued by constant rushing and stressing about time.  There will be enough of that in their lives later on, or maybe already, depending on their parents’ situations.  However, with 6 pairs of snow pants, boots, hats, neck warmers and jackets that all need to be snapped, tied, tightened, tugged, shoved, grasped and zipped before little people crawl away, need to pee or start undressing because they are too hot and sweating, I’d like to save every second I can.  I think that’s a pretty reasonable aspiration.

Parents, remember when you said, “I don’t know how you do it?”  It’s when we are almost done getting dressed for the snow and I am in the home stretch, which at a daycare is putting on the mittens, that I wonder too, how I do it..

6 little sets of hands x 10 little fingers = 60 little fingers that must be placed in 6 little pairs of stretchy, cute, funky coloured, whimsy, pernickety, annoying little gloves.  Do you know how many times I help “Ashley” try to get her two fingers out of the one finger hole to have them placed right? And she is just the first of 6 waiting to put their little gloves on.. Grrr.. I am now sweating too.  Not from wearing winter clothes, I get dressed last, but sweating from the frustration created by parents who forget or have  no idea what it is we daycare educators do.. And that is, smile and say “no Ashley, wrong finger hole” and help her try again until she gets it right.

Please read the notes that we send home.

They are not written for no reason.  I promise you that.

Please do not send gloves.