The Giggles

Half of my class is filled with 4 year old girls. Most of my girls have an illness called The Giggles. While this mostly acts up during naptimes, bathroom time, anytime more then 3 small children are together during free play time, it also acts up when talking about certain themes...

A. Silly words that rhyme.
B. Boyfriends
C. Kissing (usually the boyfriends)

Any sort of silly words will make The Giggles start. Paco’s taco. Ducks stuck in muck. Sheep in a jeep. They will even make up words to try to make things rhyme.

Yes, kissing. I have four year old girls that tell each other not only do they have boyfriends (some are boys in the class others are son's of their parents' friends) but that they are kissing this boys. Or girls. I have one girl that had no idea what all this kissing was about and when everyone was coming up to me telling me they were kissing boys, she told me she was kissing girls. Oh really? A few are getting married, most are just kissing and I guess playing the field. One does have a settle boyfriend since this summer if he knows it or not I am not sure. But she does have him wrapped around her finger. Show N Tell pictures have come in with him pulling her up the hill in the sled. I want someone to pull me up the hill too, my husband doesn’t do that for me even when he was my boyfriend. How do these 4 year old girls have their man trained better than I have almost 30 years later.

But back to The Giggles. When the girls have a bad case of this there is no helping them. Everything and anything is funny. What I have found true is The Giggles come out the worst when pretend play goes wild (think girls gone wild only G rated).

More often then not the babies in Dramatic Play Area (DPA) make The Giggles so bad that I slowly lose control of the tone of the day. It will start out very simple. The babies are "bad". Most of the time we do not hear why the babies are bad, but I got most bad babies in the world I think in my DPA. Then the babies will have to go to jail. This will involve a lot of giggling, while trying to call the police to come get said baby babies. When that doesn't seem to work the children get creative. This usually involves one of a few things in the DPA, the kitchen, dishwasher, freezer, washing machine, and the dryer. (All are plastic child size items in the DPA.)

Lately it’s been the washing machine. The poor babies are them jammed into this washing machine, yelled at and then throw some pretend play junk food and the door is closed. Then there will be The Giggles again. Then the next girl will have to one up the other child with her baby. That baby will be bad and will have to be tied up in a baby blanket “so they will stop crying” because they are just so bad. She will then have to call her girlfriend on the phone to complain about how bad her baby is and why she will be late to the party. (Life is hard when you have a crying babydoll when you are a small child.) She will then decided that the baby is just too much for her and have to take the baby for a walk in the stroller. This usually means this poor baby will be dumped somewhere shortly after. Sometimes they will just yell at their babies and then just walk away to a different area to play. (Trust me I understand, I wish I could walk away too once in a while.) Just for fun once in a while I will try to save the babies and pretend I am them asking to call Child Protection to come back them away from the Crazy Mommies. Or will grab the babies and walk with them up above my head asking saying "SAVE ME". This will make The Giggles turn into something else that usually involves me changing a child that lost bladder control during The Giggles.

I have not found a cure yet for The Giggles. Some days I enjoy sitting back and watching it all unfold. Other days like this evening, when I have two children one each wrapped around my feet giggling uncontrollable about what I am not sure. While their parents look at each other and I am sure wonder how they gave birth to whatever it is giggling on the floor. I feel sorry for the parents and find myself glad I do not yet have children of my own.

This is spreading, more and more little girls are getting The Giggles earlier and earlier in life. Even the boys are not safe from this illness anymore. There is nothing you can do but just grin and bare it. Sometimes I find hitting my head against the wall does help me a little bit deal with it. But this only makes The Giggles come out stronger. Teachers & parents are lost. There is nothing on WebMD on what to do to cure it or even control it. There is nothing in any Early Childhood Education class on how to prepare you for it. Pretty soon you have PRETEEN girls that still do not have The Giggles under control and you now have lost all hope…..

New to Blogging Intro

Thank you Beth at www.thiscrazythingcalledmotherhood.blogspot.com/ for helping me set this up. (She is my baby sister.) While she is amazing writing and her children can make me bust out laughing. I am not the best writing. I have been "blessed" with a few learning disabilities in this area. Spelling and grammar tend to awful at times. Which is why I am sure Beth has talent in this area ten fold, because it skipped over me.

I do have one thing she doesn't. My own preschool filled with 10 lovely little children that do all sort of funny things and 15 years in this field to refect from. While most of my blogs will be just fun and lite thing like my sister's blog. I do like to freak out every once in a while and show that I do have views on some of the great issues. You have been pre warned.

*Clip art is made by my very talented friend Ashley. If you like what you see and you will see more trust me, visit her website at www.thistlegirldesigns.com. All her stuff is copyrighted until you buy the right to use it.