Molly ran into the main day room and stopped dead in her tracks causing Sarah to pile down on top of her from behind. Causing both girls to land in a crumpled heap.
“Hey? Why did you stop?”
Sarah complained rubbing her back to ease the pain of the fall.
But Molly hadn’t heard her, she was staring in wonderment at the room. She didn’t have any younger siblings and only the vaguest of memories of herself at a toddler age so had no concept of what to expect but this was beyond anything she could have hoped for.
The room was large and airy with brightly coloured pictures and paintings on the wall, clearly done by kids at the daycare. There were toys everywhere and the large room was marked into obvious sections with one corner having large comfy looking beanbags and cushions beside a large bookcase full of children’s stories. Another corner hosted some cribs and mats probably for nap time. There was an area for playing dress-up with a large wendy house and dress up box with dolls and fake food and such. There was also an indoor sand trough and water trough with a large waterwheel. Up against one wall was a changing table, there was also a large playpen and desks dotted the room with various arts and crafts going on. It was amazing and she just sat there on her butt staring at the room.
Jennifer was jumping up and down agitatedly at one of the furthest tables and Molly could see pens and crayons sprawled across the table top. She pushed herself back up and still holding tight onto her teddy with the reality altering device safely tucked away inside, she walked over to the table. Jennifer was already flicking through a colouring book.
“I’m gonna colour this”
She said holding the picture up to show a garden scene with a happy caterpillar on a fence and some equally happy flowers smiling at it.
“That’s a good picture”
Molly agreed as she pulled some blank paper towards her.
“I’m gonna draw a picture for my Mommy”
She said happily as she reached out for a green crayon, feeling happy as she settled into her new role at daycare. It was interrupted by Jennifer.
“Mommy? Mommy? ” She broke into laughter. “What are you a baby? I stopped calling my mom Mommy years ago”
Jennifer wasn’t looking at Molly, she was actually concentrating on colouring in inside the lines of her picture, and she wasn’t being too successful about it, but Jennifer’s derisive comments brought Molly back to reality with a bump.
She wasn’t actually a baby, she was still a teenager. Molly had just been feeling so relaxed and so happy to be doing toddler things that she had slipped into old childish terms. She felt her face flush red at being caught out and buried her face into her pink plush teddy bear. She suddenly lost interest in colouring in. Feeling a little deflated. She looked around the room for something else to do. The reading corner looked interesting, she’d like to read some of the kids books but suddenly remembered that she couldn’t read any more. That made her smile return. She could at least go look at the pictures. She looked at her two friends concentrating.
“Hey i’m gonna go….”
Before Molly could finish her sentence one of the workers approached the table.
“Hi girls, have you all gone potty this morning?” She asked brightly.
“Potty?” Molly asked quizzically.
Sarah slipped down off of her chair.
“I need to go please.”
Jennifer looked up and sighed putting her crayons down, slightly annoyed by the interruption.
“Yeah I gotta go as well.”
Molly confounded by what was going on but not wanting to be left by herself nodded meekly in response. The worker pointed over to a red door.
“Come on then, lets get you guys all sorted out”