We started "school" (one day I'll stop putting it in quotations but I think it's hilarious my one and a half year old is going to a school. Does he sharpen pencils? Does he go to P.E.? Does he take any standardized tests?) 2 weeks ago and I've learned so much about why parents are always complaining about school. If you've ever spent anytime on facebook prior to the beginning of school you'll see a million blogs about the joy of early childhood education. What a gift preschool has on molding young minds and how we should buy their teachers all sorts of pretty school supplies and presents because they don't make enough money (all true). But what you don't see is how much it sucks.
Here's why.
1. Your kid (okay well, definitely my kid) does not eat or sleep even half of the amount of time he does at home. He's on some sorority/party girl diet where he eats hardly anything and plays when he should be sleeping. Why is this bad? Because when I get off and go pick up my child he. is. wrecked. When I walk into the room his eyes puffy, exhausted and HUNGRY! I get the joy of spending the next 3 hours resisting the urge to succumb to the toddler tantrum. Obviously he's had them before but nothing like the no sleep, no eat tantrum. These are epic and scare myself and our neighbors.
Scenes like this are common:
Austin "Da-da, da-da, da-da"
Natalie "Da-Da's at work still we can see him when he gets home".
Austin bursts into uncontrollable sobbing.
Austin wants something he can't have. Like tonight his eye was on the luxurious prize of Philip's conditioner.
"No, Austin. That's not a toy" Natalie
"uncontrollable sobbing" Austin
He is not the easiest kid in the world but the majority of the time he's pretty fun so this "new" side is really not working out for me.
2. It costs 1/3 of my salary. This is another reason number one hurts so badly. I'm paying 1/3 of my salary to take care of this demon possessed child. Awesome.
3. Everyone coughs and sneezes every single second.
4. I get in trouble on the daily. We get emails home every day with "friendly reminders" such as:
"please label every piece of your child's food" I bought these adorable labels for all of his containers but have forgotten to label is box of raisins. Does that really warrant an email home?
"Please label every piece of your child's clothes" All of his extra clothes are labelled but sue me when I forget to label a pair of shorts he is currently wearing.
5. It's a lot of work getting this child to go to school. Packing lunch, extra clothes, diapers, shoes, wipes, 3 sippy cups, putting SPF on before leaves, eating breakfast before he leaves, attempting to comb down his 3 major cowlicks, all before 7 is a marathon.
6. They are ruining naps for us. I've worked hard at things before. I rocked grad school, ran a half marathon, consistently had 2 or more jobs my adult life but never have I worked harder than to create a baller nap routine. And in 2 weeks these preschool women have destroyed it. He maybe naps an hour all day. ALL. DAY. 2 weeks ago this child was napping 3 hours a day and now he is sleeping so little and man I feel it. I've asked them what nap time is like and she says well kids are often getting up, it's hard to get it dark in here and we play music. I wanted to smack her in the face. Do you nap well when you're attempting to take a nap in a subway station because that's basically what you've described for me.
7. And the biggest one.. Austin doesn't seem to be liking it :( This is why Philip and I are the most unhappy. It's only been a little over two weeks and I'm going to give it a month before I make some big education statement. (I may finally pull the "I'm a teacher" card. I've been saving it.) All but one day he has been crying when I go to pick him up. He's been standing alone either in a corner or by the door crying. I realize there are 12 kids but it's frustrating that not once has a teacher been comforting him, etc. I don't know what to think about it. I try to think maybe they just gave him a hug and then another student needed something. I realize they can't hold him all day and I don't want them to but it's hard picturing your child upset all day. (and paying an unearthly amount of money for it!)
It's just got to get better, right? Whenever I'm feeling down I think of some songs (usually from musicals, obvi) that help me out.
I'm thinking a cross between "The Sun Will Come out" from Annie paired with "I have Confidence" from Sound of Music might just do the trick. Luckily Austin loves "bu-zik" (and if any of those no napping/eating/loving teachers correct this they best run for the hills) so maybe this will help!
How could you not like this kid?
18 month pictures
He loves sweeping and swiffering so we "play" this all the time. I'd like to point out he voluntarily put on his sunglasses and this picture and the one below were all taken before 8 AM on Sunday.
For Natalie's News this has been, Natalie-Corinne.
