Memory Lane - Part 2 (the babies)

I've been trying so hard to remember who I was as a child but the best I got so far is a weird little dreamer girl.

My friends and family usually respond with "You are Not weird and anyway why do you care what people say!" to any passing comment on my part about the weirdness that is I.
It's sweet and supportive and an amazing testament to people's ability to self-deceive.

I am weird. I think I was born that way.

When you are not quite four years old and everyone in your nursery thinks you are weird and avoids you (having gone through the initial period of being impressed with your super powers and came out on the other side) and your only friend is a boy that looks like an albino who the children avoid possibly even more than you, you kinda get the message.

Something peculiar happens to us in that short period when we transition from babies to small children.

As an only child, I didn't have much contact with other children until I started nursery (aged 3.5). The nursery was packed and they put me in with the babies for first couple of weeks, until my parents argued and pressured enough to have me transferred into my own age group. I don't remember those two weeks. Maybe it was two days? Who knows. Everyone has forgotten this by now.
The reason I remember it, however vaguely, is because of something that happened about a year later.

A few of the nursery ladies had a peculiar punishment for those children who were particularly badly behaved on a given day - they were sent 'upstairs' to sit with the babies for anything up to half a day. When you are 4 years old with an attention span of an ADHD-afflicted squirrel, spending any time with children who couldn't talk or play and had no toys in their room was the worst punishment anyone could imagine. Worse than being made to stand in the corner with your back to the room. Worse than being told off in front of everyone. Worse, even, than being smacked.

I was a model child. In the year since I started nursery I was never even scolded. I was quiet and withdrawn and spent a lot of time staring blankly out of windows. I had a wonderful teacher for that first year (of her, some other time) but my best friend Sandra had got her dad to have her transferred to an older group and I made my parents transfer me too so we could be together.
The new group had a room downstairs and 3 or 4 teachers that rotated and who I cannot remember now, except that there was one that we were all afraid of. Even so, I knew how to be well behaved and I never got punished for being naughty, (mostly because I simply wasn't naughty).

Not that day. That day, I had been naughty enough to deserve being sent up to sit with the babies.
I cannot quite remember what it was that I had done.  It may have been not sleeping during the afternoon nap and keeping other children awake too. I may have sneaked out of the room (Not Allowed Under Any Circumstances during nap time). The teachers had never disciplined me or spoke to me harshly before; "That's it, upstairs now and stay until I send for you!"

Shocked gasps of my fellow classmates . Their scared eyes. Some started pleading on my behalf.

I had felt somewhat upset at being punished, but did not dread the punishment itself.  This, in itself was weird. I kept saying, "it will be fine," but my friends insisted on trying to comfort me as if I was being particularly brave.  The repeat offenders were shaking their little heads sadly, as if doubtful that I would escape alive from this calamity.

Secretly, I had been elated. In the year that I have been attending the nursery I have not seen the babies, not since those initial two weeks or two days or whatever it was. We weren't allowed near them unless sent specifically for punishment and I was a good girl, I obeyed the rules.
But I had longed for them. I remember that sense of longing even now, I can feel it in my chest as if I'm there now, aged four or thereabouts, climbing the many, many stairs, up to the babies room.

I recall thinking 'will it be the way I remember them? Is it going to be the same? What if it's not and I imagined it all? ' on my way up. But mostly, I couldn't wait to get there and find out.

Arriving upstairs somewhat winded (chubbiness and second hand smoke will do that to you) I reported to the nurse on duty. There were two or three rooms to choose from.  The nurse gave me a sympathetic look and said she was surprised to see me up there, (my reputation as a model child traveled far and wide, you see), then put me in with the oldest group.

It was warm and there were about 7 or 8 evenly spaced cots with babies ranging from 6 to 14 months in them. I felt shy. The nurse left me and closed the door. Sunlight filtered through the slats on the windows and cast shiny, yellow stripes over everything.

My back to the wall, still not making eye contact, I slid down to the floor next to the door. There wasn't much room to sit or play anywhere else. There were no toys. Just babies.

I could feel them now, their interest and kindness and their individual thoughts gently probing. "It's Ok, you'll be fine," one of them said straight into my head. "We are not that bad," added another reproachfully. So, I relaxed and let them into my head and they, in turn, let me into theirs.  It was just like I remembered from my first two weeks or two days or whatever it was. It was bliss.

I won't tell you what we 'talked' about, some secrets are mine to keep forever, but I did find out a lot of useful info about some of the children that were making my life difficult and that could be used for blackmail at the opportune moment.

When someone was finally sent upstairs to fetch me I felt sad. I didn't want to leave. I tried to persuade the teachers to let me sit with the babies every day, but they thought I was trying to use reverse psychology and never sent me upstairs again.