A-Z Challenge: K is for...

KIDS  I have always enjoyed working with and being around kids.  I love their curiosity and unending youthful energy. 

I remember my first babysitting job, I was on a summer vacation trip with my Aunt in Florida and my cousin asked if I could watch his step kids while he and his wife went out for the evening.  The kids were old enough to be pretty self sufficient, so I was just there in case something happened and to help them get ready for bed.  Later that same trip some other cousins took me to Cocoa Beach. We stayed at a time share and some random women at the pool asked if I would babysit her kids while she and her husband went out.  I wasn't sure about it since I had never taken care of a baby, but my cousin who is a year younger than me had changed her sister's diapers before and offered to co-babysit with me.

I had here and there babysitting jobs after that and pretty regularly when I went to college as my brother's wife's sister lived in the same city and I watched her 5 kids at different times for differnt things.  I don't think I ever had all 5 at once though.  For a year I even drove her oldest daughter from daycare to preschool, then back because it worked out that it was between my classes that year.

The summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college I got a job as a camp counselor in a tiny little town in upstate New York.  It was a month long summer camp and the kids were all mostly weathly Jewish kids.  There were two sessions and both sessions I bunked with 9 year olds.  During the day I taught tie-dye and leather craft to all ages.  It was really quite an experience, especially since it was the first time living away from home without any family at all near by.

Towards the end of my college career I took Childhood Psychology and had to do volunteer work with a child organization.  I volunteered with the Boys and Girls Club and really hit it off with the kids and the staff at the branch I was at so they hired me.  I worked there for just over a year until I got a job that kept me too busy to continue on there. 

Now with my current job as a Water Quality Specialist 10% of my time is dedicated to community education and outreach and I devote a majority of that time to our tribal youth.  Once a month my coworker and I go out and pick up the kids and bring them to the community center where we teach environmenatal education and watershed science.   I really love the aspect of my job and look forward to it each month.  It is not mandatory so we have had anywhere from 2 to 25 kids show up which is pretty good considering our community at the reservation is only about 120 people.  During the summer we do extra work with the youth and have 1 or 2 overnight camps for the kids.