Smorgasbord Posts from Your Archives – #PotLuck – #Kindergarten Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! 2015 by Ritu Bhathal

This is the third post from the wonderfully varied archives of poet and author Ritu Bhathal. Today the joys of being a kindergarten teacher…. things I am sure they don’t share during the career advisory days at secondary school when you are faced with so many options!

Kindergarten Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! 2015 by Ritu Bhathal

So, I managed to survive my first day with a member of staff down. We got cover help, thank goodness, and the children in the morning were fantastic! Relatively calm, considering, and we were one down.. the Screamer didn’t turn up.

However….(you knew I was gonna say that!) the afternoon was a different matter altogether! It was crazy! The kids were fighting, there were tempers like you wouldn’t believe, the ‘sharing is caring’ motto is definitely not in full flow yet! And if it wasn’t arguments, there was children trying to tip things over, transporting sand across classrooms, and switching the class PC off!

Oh, and the toilet issue…. Not poopy nappies ( thought there was that too!) but one little lovely came up to me… “Me dun Poopy! In ma pats!”, quite happily! Great! No nappy, but poop in knickers, a wonderful experience! At least she came to me before sitting down, and smearing (sorry for being gross!), then the other child, who is our serial poop offender, decided it was time to soil his pants!

My colleague came to me as I was changing the Poopy ‘pats’ and said “Does it smell of egg?” “Nope”, I said, “actually I don’t know its just plain old poopy smell!” So she went to the main part of the room and checked and her trained nose said that the smells were different hence another Poop!

So Serial Pooper was also changed. I shall not say there was calm after that, as there really wasn’t, but the toilet issues seemed to calm, until one girl was far too engrossed in whatever she was doing and wet herself. No problem, a quick change and all was ok.

Then one of my newbies came running up to me “Potty! Potty!” Now as an Indian I know that a lot of Indian children call number 2 wanting to go ‘potty’ so I was on high alert, not least because I know he was not long out of nappies, and when he had been taken to the loo earlier, he wasn’t wearing pants, let alone a nappy! I was not prepared to chase runaway poops down a trouser leg, and all over the floor! We rushed to the loo, and managed to sit him down, only for him to let loose with a number 1! No little appendage being pushed down, but a veritable fountain, and oh my goodness, how much wee can a 3 year old produce??!! Luckily I was not caught in the downpour somehow, and managed to grab him, and turned him around!

Oh, and did I forget to mention, I was also spat at! Lovely child!

I have started the gentle words with parents regarding working together, and that they need to support us as much as we are there to support them. But it is not just the nursery’s job to make these kids ready for the real world… a certain degree of responsibility clearly lies with the parents!

One more day til the weekend Peeps! One more day!!!!!!

©Ritu Bhathal 2015

About Ritu Bhathal

Ritu Bhathal was born in Birmingham in the mid-1970’s to migrant parents, hailing from Kenya but with Indian origin. This colourful background has been a constant source of inspiration to her.

From childhood, she always enjoyed reading. This love of books is mostly credited to her mother. The joy of reading spurred her on to become creative in her own writing, from fiction to poetry. Winning little writing competitions at school and locally gave her the encouragement to continue writing.

As a wife, mother, daughter, sister, and teacher, she has drawn on inspiration from many avenues to create the poems that she writes.

A qualified teacher, having studied at Kingston University, she now deals with classes of children as a sideline to her writing!

Ritu also writes a blog, a mixture of life and creativity, thoughts and opinions, which was recently awarded The Best Overall Blog Award at the Annual Bloggers Bash Awards in 2017.

Ritu is happily married and living in Kent, with her Hubby Dearest, and two children, not forgetting the furbaby Sonu Singh. She is currently working on some short stories, and a novel, to be published in the near future.

About Poetic Rituals.

Delve into a book of verse exploring different topics and different genres, all with a RITUal twist.

A collection of poetry drawing on the experiences of the writer, ranging from matters of the heart, love for the family, situations in life and some verses written with a humorous twist.

One of the reviews for the collection

Wendy Unsworth 5.0 out of 5 stars A Slice of Life

I enjoy reading funny or clever verse, mostly on the internet, in blog posts etc, when I come across them, but books of poetry are rarely my thing.

I ‘picked up’ an ecopy of Poetic Rituals when it was discounted because it’s something different and an easier read in between fat novels and autobiographies.

It is really great to open a book and be surprised in every good way by the contents. I read through the poems at one sitting, delighted with each one to the next. They reminded me in some ways of Pam Ayres work; witty, funny, poignant, some slightly tongue-in-cheek. What impressed me most was their unfailing observations of family life, relationships and the frustrations of daily life. One is about not being able to get a printer to link to a computer – I could wholly identify with that one!

Read this book, raise a smile and even a little tear. This is a lovely read!

Read all the reviews and buy the collection: https://www.amazon.com/Poetic-RITUals-Ritu-Bhathal/dp/1533088020

and other reviews on Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Poetic-RITUals-Ritu-Bhathal-ebook/dp/B01H46DN5Q

Read more reviews and follow Ritu on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30843440-poetic-rituals

Connect to Ritu

Blog: https://butismileanyway.wordpress.com/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/butismileanyway
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhantomGiggler
Bloglovin: https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/but-i-smile-anyway-13707551
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ritusmiles 

My thanks to Ritu for permitting me to dive into her archives to share with you. I hope you will head over and check them out for yourselves. Thanks Sally