They Call Me the Fireman

We often say at my house that everything happened when my oldest daughter was three. It was a momentous year in our lives, and one event that stands out was that our daughter was enrolled in daycare.

Circumstances forced me to take a job and leave my daughter at a daycare.  Now, to be sure, it was a very nice church daycare run by my sweet Sister Shirley whom I love very much. Still, my passion was to raise my children at home myself, so I cried every day after I dropped her off.

She cried everyday, too.

For weeks ...

And then she stopped crying.  She made friends.  She began to love Miss Bev and  Miss Robin (her teachers).

I continued to cry.

One evening, we were talking about our day, and she said, "You know what, Mommy? Some of my friends have nicknames.  Amanda is 'Amanda-Panda,' and Crystal is 'Crystal-Pistol."

I asked, "What do they call you?"

"They call me the Fireman," my sweet, shy and timid daughter replied.

I laughed until I cried. "The Fireman!  What in the world?"

Come to find out, every day when it was nap-time, the teachers would darken the room and turn on the radio to encourage sleepiness.  Evidently, Miss Bev was a George Strait fan.  My Elissa could repeat his song verbatim:

Well they call me the fireman, that's my name.
Making my rounds all over town, putting out old flames.
Well everybody'd like to have a what I got.
I can cool 'em down when they're smold'ring hot.
I'm the fireman, that's my name. 

(lyrics by Mack Vickery / Wayne Kemp)

Miss Bev!!!  Really?

 This post was written in response to Writers' Workshop prompt 3.) It happened at daycare.  If you would like to participate, you can link up at Kathy's blog, Mama's Losin' It.