Bite me, Bite me!

In the late 60's and early 70's housewives wanted a new style vacuum. I finally got one! Don't remember what the name of it was but it was a cute little thing. It came in various colors and looked like a little satellite. When you turned it on it glided around the floor on a soft curtain of air.



I provided day care in my home for the children of my working friends. Theirs and mine were my big happy family during the day. I know that day care givers now are expected to have a structured program for children in day care now. Not in the 60's. The children I took care of each day played with each other (and me) while I did my daily housework. One incident will stay in my memory forever.

It included my new vacuum cleaner and a small child named Kevin that I was taking care of. As I said before we had just bought the vacuum so I was not all that familiar with its operation. While I vacuumed, I wasn't picking up any dust or dirt. I realized that the hose was blocked so I removed the hose from the body of the vacuum to shake it out the window. The little boy I was minding was about two and a half and he was very curious about this new "thing" that moved around so easily over the floor. He saw his chance when I had taken the hose to the window and made his way to the vacuum.

The first thing he did was put his little arm into the hole left by the hose I had just removed. The next thing he did was flick the little on/off switch. Suddenly I heard this wail coming from the the middle of the living room floor. I ran over to find him with his little arm trapped in the vacuum, it was being sucked in and he couldn't pull it out. Of course, I quickly turned the vacuum off, removed his arm and saw that he was not injured in any way. It took a few minutes of hugs and soothing words and he was fine. Off he went to play again.

By the time his mother came to pick him up that evening I had forgotten the incident completely and, I thought he had too.

The next morning his mom and he were at my door. he had a big smile on his face but his mom looked very haggard. I remarked that she did not look very good and perhaps she should stay home from work. "I'm very tired," she said, "I did not get any sleep last night. Kevin woke up about 12 o'clock last night crying. I went into his room and he was holding his arm and he was saying 'Bite me. bite me' We looked at his arm but couldn't see any bites, but we were very concerned because we have had spiders in the bedroom before. We thought maybe he had been bitten. We took him into Emergency about one o'clock and by the time they could see us he had fallen back to sleep and it was almost dawn. They couldn't find any thing wrong with his arm at all. We were glad about that, but, by that time it was time to get ready for work!"

You can imagine what was happening to my face as she told me what had happened. It became more and more obvious that I knew something she didn't know!

Oh, no" I exclaimed. "Don't tell me he remembered!"

"What do you mean?" she asked.

So I told her about the incident the day before. If only I had remembered to mention it to her when she came to get him yesterday. Once she knew what the problem had been she laughed and so did I, Keven kept smiling - he was a happy little guy!

I learned two important things that day about taking care of children.

First - never leave the vacuum plugged in and unattended (very important)
Second - remember to tell parents about the events of the day ... you never know what happens when children go home at night!