Little helpers
For those of you who don’t know or can’t remember, I work with little people for a living. Specifically, I teach music and art classes for toddlers every morning. It’s quite a living, I must say, as it does not pay nearly as much as other professions do, but from what I can tell, is so much more fulfilling than said professions. That being said, there are times when I don’t necessarily enjoy arguing with a 2 1/2 year old about putting his/her instrument away.
However, today, as such an incident arose, I had some much-needed assistance from one of my students, Evelyn. To give some background, Evelyn has always been one of the more precocious and linguistically-gifted two-year-olds in our class. So, at around 9:40 am, when I was locked in a showdown with an impeccably dressed little girl named Ryan over a small percussive frog**, Evelyn came to my rescue. I try to make it a point never to grab anything forcefully out of my students’ small yet terrificly strong hands, as this generally results in mild hysteria. But, apparently, Evelyn has the right touch. The following is verbatim:
Me, the “Teacher”: Ryan, please give me the frog.
Ryan, stubborn, yet fashionable student: No, I put away.
Me: Ryan, you need to give me the frog.
Ryan: (shaking her head all the while, with hands behind her back): No.
Enter Evelyn: Ryan! You need to listen to Jannine. Give her the frog!
At this point, Ryan looks over at Evelyn, lets down her defense, and in one fell swoop of the hands, Evelyn recovers the frog and places it in my hands. Then Evelyn ran back to her other friends looking quite pleased with herself, and all was well.
**In the music world, there exist small, medium and large intricately designed wooden frogs. They come with stickes that are used to scrape against the frogs bumpy heads, thereby producing a distinct “rrribit!” sound.