What have I gotten myself into?

So, the previous post was about the delight of teaching small children, but this one is about the other side of it.

I was in another school for the same time of assignment, covering 40 minute blocks for other teachers and I had a kindergarten class in the library.

It is interesting watching how small children interact. I was short one proper seat at a table, so I got one child to sit at a coffee type table on the floor. Well, some how the last place I'd want to be sitting became the special place to sit and I had bit of conflict between children as several begged to also be permitted to have the special seating arrangement.

So, I ended up with about 4 of them on the floor around the coffee table. Well, I'm new at this and how was I to know that 5-year-old children working with felt pens make craters in their paper that go through the paper and dye coffee tables? And furthermore, how was I to know that Mr. Crater creator was not the most co-operative 5-year-old? He wasn't receptive to moving back to the more child-resistant tables. He wasn't receptive to allowing me to put something under his work to save dyeing the the table. He wasn't receptive to instructions on how to not make holes in his paper.

I have this theory about time. It really isn't constant like people commonly believe. I swear, that 5 minutes working with that child took an hour or more to get through. Time absolutely expanded as I watched each second go by until I could get these guys to pack up and head back to their classroom.

Finally it was time. Two of my little angels did not want to clean up and how was I to know that firmly telling them they needed to clean up was the wrong thing to do? So, in corner one we had a child lying on his back, legs and arms waving wildly in the air, screaming at the top of his lungs, and in corner two we had a matching companion. Way, way , way more expansion of time happening here, and if you'd been there, you would know that I do not lie about this time expansion thing. In this case, a minute feels like a day.

How was I to know that to get 5-year-olds to clean up you have to play vacuum cleaner?