Fluids, mostly body fluids, loomed large in the classroom this week. Fluids – organic and otherwise - loom large every week, actually. Water, for instance, helps us to mark important boundaries – to divide the world of home and family from the world of school. We start each day with hand washing – these ablutions are the real signifier of arrival in the classroom. Children aren’t really, REALLY at school until their hands are washed. Many children resist the ritual, hanging at the classroom door or tucking themselves in at a table that MIGHT be out of teachers’ lines of sight. Refusing flat out when reminded, “Go wash hands, go, go!” Other children simply extend their time at the bathroom sink indefinitely, chasing their clasped hands round and round as thick cuffs of foam develop, rinsing open palms in the running water for minutes on end, and generally postponing their passage into the intensity of the early childhood early morning.
I will give the plot away: urine wore us out this week. But it wasn’t the only body fluid of interest, just the only one produced on the premises. Well, and the only one with a handy alchemical symbol (a square, nothing fancy – I used it in my notes tracking Hanauta’s poop and pee output during her early infancy. Did I make up a symbol for poop or find that there already was one…for dung?) Milk caused problems – or drama, really, as well. We are required by the city agency which oversees our operation, to provide 6 ounces of milk per child per meal each day. We fill 3 pitchers with milk for breakfast, and five for lunch, set them on the tables, caution children not to fill their cups to the brim, not to knock over one another’s cups as they pass the serving dishes, to please get paper towels to sop up their spills. We admonish children as they pour 6 ounces of untouched milk into the slop bucket at the end of the meal. We pour milk down the drain nearly every day, probably 1-3 quarts. If we don’t ‘go through’ enough milk the kitchen staff – in a sort of bureaucratic whisper down the lane, nag me to use more milk, get rid of more milk. Sometimes I give milk away to parents but more often I just tip the jug and let an ivory stem of it disappear into the sink drain. This week I experienced one of my periodic states of rage over this situation, prompted in part by the knowledge that people in Haiti, and in so many places including NYC are suffering terribly for lack of nutrition, while I am required to waste milk each day. I spoke directly with our health and nutrition coordinator and after 20 minutes of a profoundly circular discussion I learned that the Federal Government, through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) Guidelines, determines the required quantities of milk to be served (Go Dairy Lobby, Go!) It is out of the hands of the city agency which I had wrongly blamed for the idiocy – they are just the police, they don’t make the law, they just mete out the punishment! I was assured that there is no milk-waste quota and I am required to simply waste a modest amount of milk every day – at my own discretion really.
So, from being pissed off, let us return to the topic of pee. This week Nereida’s urine gained more potency as a signifier of emotional meaning. Pee is her primary medium these days. She stands by the cubby bins and pees. She stands by a toilet and pees. She lies on her bed and pees. She sits on the rug and pees. Her urine structures all sorts of activities in the classroom. There are things which we must say in response: “Go to the bathroom, take off your shoes and socks and pants and underpants, sit on the toilet, see if there is more pee pee that wants to come out. I will bring a bag and you can put your clothes in.” Wearing silicone gloves we lay paper towels over the puddle, if any. Wearing these gloves we help her to pack up her sodden gear. Wearing these gloves we wash her bed sheets. We spray our (purportedly non-toxic) classroom sanitizer on surfaces and, wearing gloves we wipe the surfaces dry. We label the bag of wet clothes: “Nereida 1/21/10,” “Nereida 1/22/10” just as we label her drawings, paintings, and dictations. We hang the bag on her hook down the hall, discreetly, under her coat.
Once she has peed Nereida changes out of the clothes that she arrived in. It is as though she begins her day anew, without having to say goodbye to Mommy. She’s just herself, naked, a nymph borne up into the world on nothing but a scallop shell of fluid. And then there she is in strange clothes, and ‘pampers’ – now she’s ours, our baby. Nereida likes to play baby, to play shrieking baby with teachers or peers. Her friends try to console her but she just lies on her back on the ground and cries, rocking her head from side to side. Her friends offer her imaginary bottles full of imaginary milk, but Nereida turns her head aside, signaling her rejection with a disgusted scowl.
We tried, experimentally, letting her wear a pull-up at rest time. I said, “This is just for rest time. Let’s see if this makes rest time easier.” Nereida was exultant, she agreed she’d take it off after rest was over. She wasn’t able settle down, the excitement of directing the actions of grown-ups was too precious and good to dilute and forget in sleep. After rest time she battled valiantly to keep the pull-up on. It took two strong women to subdue and change her back into underpants. After the quilted haven of diapered baby-hood she was damned if she would go back to the flimsy inhospitality of underpants. The battle field was now everywhere. Coat cannot be put on. Milk cannot be poured without a spill, spill cannot be sopped up. Hands cannot be washed. Once commenced, hand washing cannot be stopped. Rest cannot be had: Nereida swims on her back along the classroom floor, drawing her knees up, planting her feet, pushing away to extend her legs and move her body along. Yelling and swimming on the linoleum, past chair legs and blue cots, over grains of sand table sand and bits of lunchtime rice. On she goes, on she goes, a castaway in search of she knows not what.
