Friends and family told me not to expect too much heading into yet another centre, but the truth is I didn’t know what to expect – I was numb. We had experienced the worst six months of our lives, had in my opinion been forced to turn our backs on all we had ever known and just to top things off, we had failed at our first new start. Honestly things couldn’t get any worse – could they?
Within our first hour at the new centre Charlie had played independently, moved between my room and his and more importantly, we had both been reassured.
All of Charlie’s teachers had been so lovely and had checked in with me throughout the day. They asked questions and expressed their condolences for our loss. One staff member called out from over the fence, “it sounds like you’ve had a hard time but you’ll find your feet here”. All the while my beautiful Charlie smiled and waved from his new yard. He used the toilet with no accidents, sat and ate his food, pulled a girl’s hair and attempted to bite another child – our boy had defiantly found his feet! Now it was my turn.
I was pretty lost for my first day, while the other educators rushed around ticking off individual allocated tasks – they really did have it all structured to a tee and I looked forward to becoming a part of it. In the mean-time I kind of positioned myself within ratio and spent time getting to know the children – as again, they were all new to me.
There was still a lot to sort out, neither Charlie or I had a uniform, I hadn’t been inducted (I tried not to read too much into the reoccurring theme), I had forgotten my lunch and didn’t know where the coffee was hidden. But I felt that we might just be ok this time – I could only hope.
I was more involved on my second day as I was asked to do the sleeping routine with the children. It was the first time I had worked in a centre without a separate sleeping room – it was different but I was actually amazed at how quickly the children had fallen asleep. I ate with the children which freed up my lunch break and I worked out there was a kettle within reach from the kitchen into my room, which made me very happy.
I remembered what I enjoyed most about child care, a realisation I was yet to experience without the stress while at the previous centre – it was having a cuddle, to settle the children before they closed their eyes and nodded off to sleep. The funny thing was, I knew this but I had forgotten amongst the chaos, but I wouldn’t be forgetting again! The bond I felt building between myself and each of the children as I did what most others couldn’t – ensure children feel safe and secure within their environment, creating a sense of belonging.
Charlie was thriving! He was smiling and playing, joining the other children for lunch and although coming back and forth into my room, he could confidently tell me when he wanted to go back to his room. He would say ‘my room Mummy, my room’ and off he would go. His teacher did approach me about a referral for speech therapy which I was happy to move forward with, although I was happy with his recent progress. He was singing and bossing everyone around, giving us new words every day. But it was time to focus on Charlie and his needs, it was time to address his behaviours and start ruling out pieces of the puzzle.
By Saturday morning all my emotions from the past two days had come to a head and I regretted not giving myself the time I needed to process. I had foolishly thought that because everything had gone so well, I didn’t need to shelter myself – wrong.
Although the transition had gone beyond my wildest expectations, my emotions were quite high and I just hadn’t allowed myself to take in the entirety of the situation. Several staff members had expressed their condolences for our loss and I had met a lot of new people over the two days – I was exhausted.
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The following week was hard. As part of the new position, Charlie would need to be in with me on a Monday – I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I figured it couldn’t be any worse than what we had already been through.
The morning seemed to go smoothly with Charlie happily playing outside or sitting quietly while I started with the sleep time routine, but as it hit lunch time things started to escalate. Charlie stopped listening and became physical with his peers; I just couldn’t keep him calm and I began to struggle – and Charlie followed suit.
I knew the day would come when the questions would start, ‘do you just have Charlie?’ ‘do you have older children at home?’ etc but not today, surely?
Wrong – I told three different staff members about Louis that day, all were shocked and all looked at me with sympathy in their eyes, followed by the words ‘I’m so sorry’. I went on to explain that we had both had a rough six months and that he was expressing some aggressive behavioural issues that we were yet to address. But this was our problem, no one had been nasty to me, there was no pressure (other than that with my own child) and Charlie was happy, rough, but happy.
By the end of the day, I was exhausted and it was the first time I felt I might cry. The difference was this time these emotions were my own, Charlie was my son and we needed to work out how Mondays were going to look from now on.
Unfortunately, my confidence was shot from the past six weeks and I was struggling to speak up at the new job – again my problem. I needed to align with my team and I needed to give them the go ahead to ‘jump in’ with Charlie. At the end of the day, we were all getting to know each other and after what I had just confided, it was possible we were all ‘walking on eggshells’ with each other.
At the end of the day, I needed to confide further with my team, inform them of my struggles and honesty ask them for help, I’m sure we’re all aware of the saying ‘educators are better with other people’s children, than their own’ and honestly I believed it.
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Due to our appointment with the Royal Melbourne Hospital the following Thursday, Charlie attended kinder without my presence. Not ideal, but originally, we had planned for him to have been settled at the previous centre so we just had to make it work. Therefore, Charlie was dropped off at Nan and Pa’s bright and early and they would take him to kinder, again, not ideal, but we all had to work together. However, I am so proud to say that other than an unsettled drop off, Charlie enjoyed his day at kinder and was none the wiser that I wasn’t in ‘Mummy’s room’.
This kid just continued to surprise me and I could feel my heart swelling, I had actually started to believe that we would never find our place, yet here we were – happy.
Charlie was even starting to make friends, and boy friends at that! He had always been very popular with the girls following him around but I’d actually never seen him fit in and play with a group of boys before. At Nathalia he would play independently or help out the educators with the everyday tasks, feeding the chickens, getting the drink bottle trolley etc. Occasionally I would look over and see him sitting and playing quietly with Harry by his side – a memory I would always cherish! But now I look across, into his new yard at Numurkah and see although the same little boy, a very different outcome – a brighter one – for both of us!
'Our Little Louis' 