Sharp Corners

Sometimes the "before" doesn’t prepare you for the "after."

In anticipation of school photo day today, my two oldest sons asked earlier this week if they could each borrow a tie from J because they wanted to look like him in the pictures. I said his ties would be too long but I’d be happy to take them to the store and let them choose something in their size. They looked so cute this morning I wanted to bite them. See for yourself:

Once they got home, I asked them to change clothes while I reviewed their homework and school papers. A short time later, I heard them playing….

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Did you know that Johnny Appleseed wore a pot on his head? You did? Well then you’re one step ahead of me. I discovered this nugget of information when my son informed me last night that he has to dress as Johnny Appleseed for school today. Unsure what he was expected to wear, I Googled the matter and, sure enough, there was Mr. Appleseed all decked out in his cookware. My son thought it would be terrifically funny to wear a pot to school but the teachers were already a step ahead on this and told the kids to leave the Calphalon at home.

Dutiful mother that I am, I decided to make my son a pot out of aluminum foil and cardboard. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not exactly Martha Stewart but I didn’t think the pothat came out looking too bad, even if its diameter was roughly nine times the size of my son’s head. Also, once he put it on he did kind of remind me of a neighbor I used to have who was fond of tin foil caps and always talked to his Xerclithian friends via Channel 3 on the television.

Once the kids were in bed, I left the "pot" on the kitchen counter and didn’t think another thing about it. About an hour later, J wandered through the kitchen, saw it and, as men are wont to do, immediately began improving on my engineering design. He brought out a staple gun, a hammer, protractors, a compass, built a drafting table, consulted reference books and ultimately made the damn thing better by stapling it to a baseball cap and fortifying the flimsy handle I’d made.

Maybe he channels Martha?

Melissa Summers and Sarah Gilbert over at Blogging Baby have been discussing the high preschool expulsion rate which, according to a recent Yale University study is roughly three times the rate of K-12 schools.

This is a timely discussion for me since I recently made the decision to remove my son from preschool. My unrest about this whole situation has been one of the reasons I’ve
been so quiet on this blog lately. I tend to write about the things
that are foremost in my mind and I’ve been so upset over this matter
that I’ve been able to think of little else. I’ve wanted to talk about this here for quite some time but haven’t really known how to begin because I fear my confusion, fear and frustration will end up making me look foolish instead of the competent, together parent I wish to appear. But, oh well. Here goes:

I removed my son from preschool last week before he had a chance to be expelled. He had been there for months and loved every minute of it until, suddenly and without warning, he decided he hated it. When I say I had to take him there kicking and screaming, I mean that literally. My normally sunny and sweet child became a heathen of epic proportions the minute I turned to leave and no one seems to have any explanation for it. At four, he is unable to give a rational reason for his behavior and even calling in a counselor to observe him at the school yielded no conclusions. His actions were so unacceptable, and the school was so unable to handle him, that I was left with no choice but to take him out.

Now, there are two schools (pardon the pun) of thought on this. Does agreeing to remove him from the environment when he throws a fit send a message that all he needs to do is get nasty to get what he wants? Or would leaving him there when he is so obviously unhappy and upset send him the message that I am insensitive to his needs?

I feel very alone in trying to solve this issue: the school had few resources to deal with his behavior and the plans they came up with were defintely not working. My son’s father holds the opinion that there is "no value in preschool" so bringing him into this equation would serve no purpose. I’ve sought out the opinions of several people and each piece of advice I get seems to be in conflict with the next.

The bottom line is this: my son benefits from and needs preschool. The environment he was in was clearly the wrong one and I believe he would succeed quite well in a preschool more suited to his personality. His father is unwilling to contribute to the cost of tuition, which severly limits our options. I believe there are several schools in the area that would be excellent choices for my child but their costs are out of my reach. To return him to his old preschool would be counterproductive on so many levels I wouldn’t know where to begin. So I feel like I have somehow failed this first test of my son’s educational future. I put him at the only place I could afford, it turned out to be ill-suited for him, and I ended up yanking him before he could develop a Permanent Record. Scrambling to find slapdash child care while I work ends up with my son watching Dora the Explorer when he could be learning how to count to thirty.

I am sick about this and don’t understand what exactly has happened. He blossomed in preschool and I believe unequivically that he needs to go back. For some reason, he refuses to be anything less than a complete demon at his former school and I have no idea what to do next. Of course I fear that he would behave in a similar fashion even at a new school but, then again, I believe his actions were directly related to that particular school.

For non-parents, I almost want to apologize for Mommy-Blogging (but I won’t). For parents, I’m wide open to suggestions because I am literally out of ideas.

Omens.

Do you believe in them? I should have known I was in for a doozy of a day when this morning I accidentally set off my car alarm and couldn’t figure out how to shut it off (I’m not blonde but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.)

That little incident turned out to be a harbinger of things to come.

I finally got a minute to take a shower this afternoon and didn’t want my four year old (who’s home for the day) to have the run of the house while I was I getting cleaned up. I parked him on my bathroom floor with a mirror, some of my headbands, a few cotton balls, a dollop of hand lotion, things I thought might keep him occupied for a few minutes. He entertained himself really well and when I was ready to get out I asked him to wait in my room while I dried off. Blind as a bat without my contacts, I watched with Blurr-O-Vision as he scooped up the things he’d been playing with and went to my bedroom.

The next thing I heard was him merrily chatting away to the cats. "Oh, he’s so cute," I mused, thou roughly impressed with myself at producing such an adorable little imp.

By the time I was creamed, visioned and robed, he’d moved into the kitchen. I glanced at the table and saw paper, crayons and markers. What a little artist! My budding Pollack. He told me he was writing his name so I went to slather some make up on my face and look presentable for J later today.

Once I was properly prettified, I flounced out to the kitchen where I was at once presented a Ziplock bag with a piece of paper affixed to it bearing my son’s name. He was so proud of himself! "Please send it to Gee!" he begged (that’s my mother). How could I say no?

Just before setting it aside, I noticed there was something in the bag. It looked strangely familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. Fur? Lint? What was this stuff?

Though I had trouble identifying what was in the bag, I figured it out after carefully inspecting my son and the cats.

Between them, they have 26 bald patches where he snipped off their fur before using the scissors (the ones I thought were carefully put away in my bathroom) on his own hair.

Gah.