Tuesday, June 04, 2013

Dreaded lunch






One of the dubious joys of my job is supervising the lunch period.... which means feeding 400 kids in an hour.  It is a noisy... frantic.... hellish hour.  And I dread it.

One of the other dubious joys of this lunch hour is trying to teach most some of the children table manners.  Ok truthfully I have given up on that........... but i do insist they sit while eating - no running with knives - and no food fights.

For me lunch time is the one time of the day when the worst could conceivably happen.

I have been patting myself on the back that here I was down to the last 3 weeks of my career - and I had survived lunch time........... as had the kids.  I should have held the congratulations till the last kid left the building on the last day !!!

Today at noon I was walking between the tables chatting with kids when I heard a shout from across the room.  I looked up to see one of the lunch staff waving her arms like a mad woman and everyone standing up.  I instantly became "super woman" and flew over kids and tables to the problem. 

One of my children was choking.  

It amazes me how quickly my mind goes into automatic........ I was accessing the situation before I even got to the child.  I realized she was 1) breathing - good sign and 2) coughing - even better sign. 

It turned out she had simply choked on her last bite of sandwich - it got stuck in her throat and after much coughing and crying - and back rubbing - she managed to unstick it!!  A drink of milk washed the last of the sandwich all the way down.

It wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been - but boy oh boy did it teach me not to sign off on the job until the very last day !!! 

1 comment:

  1. Ordalie2:52 pm

    Bloody awful indeed! I remember once I was writing on the blackboard when I heard the whole class gasp: a kid had just jumped out of the window...and we were on the first floor. You can imagine what might have been the consequences. Actually he was unhurt but I was considered as if I had pushed him myself.

    ReplyDelete

Popular Posts