Priceless

Sometimes I wish I could have been there...

Let me set the scene for you:
It was chaos. Pure chaos. What else could it be with 16 - 2 year olds in one room? The teachers were out numbered. 2 of them against an army of mischievous little souls. One teacher was in the bathroom supervising potty time. The other was working her way through the diaper crew.

The teachers aren't completely defenseless in the jungle - they use a whole arsenal of gorilla tactics to ensure the cooperation of their sometimes mutinous crew. And for the record I strongly suspect one of my children as the ring leader for most of the antics in the room. I won't name names, but I bet you don't need more than 1 guess....

One of those methods that seems to work particularly well is a tupperware jar full of candy corns. I was told it is the "positive reinforcement" for "putting something IN the potty." Though I believe it is used a bit more liberally than that and have in fact seen it used as outright bribery. At one point, not long after Ryan first moved to the room one of his teachers admitted that Ryan often got one for just setting foot in the bathroom as he went through a phase where getting him into the bathroom was a lot like the reaction you would get trying to put a cat in the tub - paws outstreached, clawing madly at anything and everything wildly trying to latch on to anyone or anything that would prevent him from being uncermoniously being tossed in. To say that he was a bit resistant might have been a tad of an understatment, though ironically enough he loved to play in our powder room at the time and quite frequently would shut himself or he and Connor into the pitch black powder room to which they would both laugh histerically before attempting to unroll the entire roll of toilet paper and flushing to toilet at least 15 times.

While I would prefer the reward be a ink stamp (soon to be proven cancerous I am sure), or stickers (watch out for that toxic glue), or maybe even cheerios or something else perhaps a bit more healthy I am sure I would resort to far worse for a moment's peace and cooperation if I were in their shoes.

But I digress.... So the teachers were busy making their way through potty time. Apparently at some point during the melee Ryan, unobserved, made off with the candy corn container. I can only guess at what happened next, but when the director came into the room she found him holding court in one corner of the room. He was standing facing a full semi-circle of children seated before him. Each one patiently waiting their turn as Ryan doled out the candy corns to all of his loyal servants, I mean classmates. She said it was the cutest and funniest thing she had seen in a long, long time. What a character. Hey - at least he was sharing!