On Sunday, I subbed for the Sunbeams who are 3 years old (I was released from being a Valiant teacher and Activity Day leader . . . with no new calling yet - who does that?). It is a lot to expect a young child to sit for 3 hours at church - that's a long time! I had the Sunbeams for 2 of those hours and afterwards I was . . . ummmmm, exhausted ;) I needed AND took a nap after church! And the kids didn't stay sitting so well that second hour, although I brought a blanket to sit on for the third hour which worked well. I brought pictures of laminated ladybugs for the kids to actually sit on so they'd stay sitting - telling them the ladybugs would fly away if they got up. It worked for 4 of the kids =) But I now have one crumpled lady bug that must be thrown away ;)
I only had five kids in my class - but they just fed off one another and had lots of energy! At least none of my 3 year olds were telling me they didn't want to be there, or I don't want to sit with you really loud like in another Sunbeam class. Although I did manage to lose 1 child walking down the stairs and to the classroom - yikes ;) The mother found him and brought him back to class. She's probably relieved I am not the permanent teacher ;) All together there are 4 Sunbeam classes - that's a lot of 3 year olds for one ward =) They LOVED oranges (cuties) and were very good if I was handing out slices! They also LOVED stickers. The bathroom experience was insane - one I don't recall ever doing before. I was in the bathroom for 10 minutes and only 2 of the kids used the toilet. It was like a playground to them - they wanted to crawl on the floor, look under the stalls, race back and forth from the counter to the mirror, scream to hear their echos, use soap . . . and more soap - which is good I suppose considering they touched everything in the bathroom and I really was wishing germs were visible at this point, used lots of paper towels, locked themselves in the stall - yeah . . . someone could have gave me a head's up . . . or perhaps just some assistance!
When Brady was 3 (photo above) - his Sunbeam teacher took me aside and said something to the effect of Brady being a little mischievous because he asked to use the bathroom twice during class. I asked the teacher 'did he pee both times?' The response was yes - so I didn't really know what to say - like a 3 year old knows how to get out of class by using a diversion of just saying he had to pee when he didn't? Okay, maybe believable if he didn't actually pee - but I was sort of laughing and thinking this was going to be a long year if the teacher reacted this way for everything. I guess if that's the worst thing Brady did as a 3 year old, I was okay with that ;)
When Keaton was a Sunbeam, I remember during the Primary Program he was dancing to the songs - I was laughing so hard! I can't even remember if he sang or not =) And I can't recall seeing another 3 year old dancing in the Primary Program since. This photo is my favorite picture of Keaton when he was 3 - I walked by the bedroom and found him quite enjoying himself with a pound of M&M's all to himself - too funny!
