Claire's first day of preschool

Claire's first day of preschool was today. I feel kind of stupid using that phrase, "first day of preschool," as she has been in a combination of day care and Montessori daycare/preschool since January of 2009 but, whatever. I resigned from my cubicle job, I am a SAHM now, I signed her up for preschool. She needs the interaction with kids her own age, I'm kind of anti-social anyway and I'm terrible at making mom friends just for the sake of making mom friends. (Feels so FAKEY FAKE.)

Also, I am reading this book about how to handle a three-year-old monster child and there is a part of the book that says something like, 

"Our best advice is to hire someone else to deal with the three-year-old for a few hours a day or week. This sounds like a cop-out. And yet, it remains our best advice."

A whole series of books on child development and the authors can reduce three-year-old managing advice to, "Take her somewhere else and leave her." OKAY! Sounds like a good plan to me, as yesterday she made me angrier than she'd ever been able to before. (If I was strong enough, I think my hand would have actually gone through that drywall in the hallway when I slammed my palm into it.) So, yes, I will GLADLY ship her off to someone else for a few hours and then have a lovely morning with the child that doesn't talk back to me.

It's two days a week, four hours a day. Really, to a lady that is used to up to 12 hours per day of child care? Four hours, two days a week really isn't all that much. I am kind of annoyed that it ends at 1p and not something more reasonable like 3p.

Long way to get to the idea that today was her first day. She was very excited. New lunchbox, new backpack, expectations of friends and a playground and a teacher. It was all very cute. School! We got to the parking lot, I put her backpack on and we started walking towards the classroom. I was thinking about how she really did look cute and like such a big girl and her curly, crazy hair was even clipped up neatly. I resolved to take a picture of her next to her classroom. First day of "school" and all.

That's the moment she located the only 1'x1' patch of mud in the entire parking lot and slipped on it. She managed to end up covered in mud from her ankles to her elbows. Mud on her bottom, on her legs, on her dress. Mud caked on her pink Converse shoes.

SIGH.

I had a change of clothes with me, THANKFULLY. We trooped into the church with another family behind us and the little boy said something like, "Mommy! She has poop all over her!" I said something like, "Oh, no she doesn't! She fell in mud!" but I am not sure the other mom heard me. (She definitely heard the part about the poop.) We found a restroom. I changed her clothes and cleaned her up. The entire time she was talking about how she "has a lot of poop on me!" I had visions of her telling the teachers about how she had poop all over her legs. I kept telling her, "No, honey, it was mud, you fell in some MUD." I was really hoping the MUD part would stick in her head and not the POOP part. I did a pretty good job with the cleanup but her shoes were soaking wet after I'd rinsed off the mud. 

I delivered my child to her teacher, in socks, ten minutes late and in quite the fluster about all the "poooooop!" on her legs. 

We did not take a picture.

Comments

[Jessica]

Oh, man. I'm sorry. I hope she had lots of fun once she made it to the classroom!

[HereWeGoAJen]

Ha! What an agreeable child, being willing to fall into mud just to give you a good story for your blog. ;) I hope the break is worth it. If not, I will continue to work on my toddler boarding school plans.

[Erica]

Oh lord. I love it - the best way to deal with 'em? Drop 'em off. Ha ha. And it's a cop out. Both are so true. You speak truth!! I love the drop off method.

[K]

The advice of, "Just drop their ass off somewhere..." made me crazy laugh.

Sometimes all the advice there is to offer is to give everyone a hot break to themselves.