Upon picking up my two charges from school one hot spring day, I arrive to find the younger child looking as though she has been dragged through the school yard by a team of raging buffalo.  A mere seven hours earlier, I drop off the sparkling child at the very same location with perfectly symmetrical pigtails, a cleanly scrubbed face, freshly pressed clothing, well fed and ready to face the day.  At 3:00pm, however, I barely recognize the dirt encrusted, tornado blown dreary creature that is delivered back to me.

As I am buckling the child into her carseat, we have the following conversation:

Child:  “Nanny, is this the day that means we don’t have to come back to this place tomorrow?”

Nanny:  “Do you mean Friday?  No, sweetheart.  Today is just Tuesday.”

Child:  “Well how many more days until the day when we don’t have to come back here tomorrow?”

Nanny:  “Three more days.”

Child:  (Sighing loudly)  “That’s a lot of days, Nanny.”

Nanny:  “I hear you!” I say conspiratorially.  “Did you have a bad day in Pre-K?”

Child:  “No, not really.”

Nanny:  (gesturing wildly around the child’s head) “What exactly happened in this area?”  Expecting to hear that she has been dragged by the hair around the jungle gym by a hulking first grader, known only as ‘Brutus.

Go ahead, make my day.

The real story is even more disturbing.

Child:  “Well I was pooping and EVERYTHING just fell out.  But don’t worry,  I fixed it myself.”

Nanny:  (Embracing the “Don’t ask – Don’t tell” policy)  “I see – It sounds like you really did have a tough day.  I completely understand.”

Just then the child’s much older brother, who is already in Kindergarten breaks in with his perspective:

Brother:  “No Nanny, you don’t understand.  Big people don’t get it because they don’t have to go to school all day.  They just get to sit around and do whatever they want.”

What he thinks I do all day.

What I think I do all day.

Nanny:  (Making the big mistake of trying to use reality on the child)  “Big people have to go to work every single day.  Isn’t that the same thing?”

Brother:  “It’s not the same.  At school we have people bossing us around all the time.  Big people never get bossed around.  This life is just not fair.”

Nanny:  “Wow!  This is worse than I thought.  We better go home and have a double apple juice on-the-rocks.

Child:  “Nanny, do you think I could have a cookie with that?”

Brother:  “Yeah Nanny, cause sometimes apple juice all by itself,  just isn’t enough.”