“Happiness means quiet nerves.” ~W.C Fields
There comes a time in every childcare giver’s day when they just need some peace and quiet. Am I right?
Of course I’m right.
But the thing we sometimes forget, is that the children in our care need peace and quiet just as much. Their little minds are working overtime all day long, learning and discovering, assimilating, and adapting in this loud, fast-spinning world they live in. When this all becomes too much, they are affected just as we are…and though they may not know how to ask for it, they just need calm.
When I need calming down, my favourite place to go is straight into a hot bathtub…with my lavender soap and my lavender bath oils. I love lavender. It is the smell of relaxation and comfort.
I wanted to re-create this calming “bath time ritual” with the smalls, but you just can’t have a bath at day care. So I had to compromise. I filled the water table with warm water. I dropped about 20 drops of the lovely doTerra lavender essential oil (gifted to me by one of my lovely readers) into the water, along with drops of blue and red food colouring, and let the smalls swirls them about until the water was purple and the lavender scent was filling the air. *Please note that the pure lavender essential oil is perfectly safe if ingested…this means even the smallest smalls can play without a worry.
Once the water was all nice and “purply”, I gave the girls some clear plastic tubs, some scoops, a jar full of dried lavender blooms (also safe to eat), and assorted purple toys from our playroom that I thought might be interesting for the girls to experiment with, including squares of purple cellophane. These turned out to be their favourite, the sun shone through them so nicely, making them even more purple…
The girls played in that water until it got cold. I added some more hot water, and they played some more.
They scooped and poured…
They mixed and stirred…
And they filled their jars right to the brim…
In the end, we all calmed down. The playroom smelled like the Aveda spa. The warm, scented water had soothed their spirits. The smalls were happy.
And quiet.
Thanks for stopping by!
~Arlee, Small Potatoes
