Dispatches from Preschool

Seamus started preschool this week. Two days a week, 9-12, in a class of 15 children at the community center. From the pick-up today, I gather that several of the children in his class have younger brothers or sisters. I counted at least seven younger siblings present. He also went on Tuesday and seemed to have a good time. He had “teddy bears” for snack time, played in the park, and read some books. He also received a folder and homework.

I feel very ambivalent about the homework, because I really don’t want to sit down with him to do it. I have enough homework of my own to do. However, I did encourage him to do his homework this morning before taking him again (note: I was teaching last night, so I missed the 4:30-9:30 part of the evening). This after Gilbert smeared peanut butter all over the paper. It was a woodland scene with a deer, raccoon, bird, and bunny. I got out the crayons, gave Gilbert another piece of paper to do his own drawing, and asked Seamus if he wanted to color the picture. “What color is a deer?” I asked. He said, “Black” and found the crayon and colored the deer black (by color I mean he scribbled over the deer, not at all in the lines). Then I asked if he wanted to color anything else on the paper. He decided to color the bird brown but pulled the black crayon back out and scribbled over it. So we put in in his folder to return to his teacher.

We walked there, played in the park until it was time to go in, waited in line!? to check him in. The boy in front of him handed the teacher his homework, and she praised it for being so neat with so many different colors. (I’m pretty sure that kid’s mom colored it for him.) Then Seamus handed him hers, and it was pretty obvious she was having trouble thinking of something to say about it. The check in process took a long time, and I lost patience, so I said, “Bye Seamus, see you later” using the pretense that Gil was getting to antsy to contain in the school any longer. Seamus asked for a kiss, I gave him one, and G and I hightailed it out of there.

Upon our return, I let Gilbert play in the car for a while, then we took a “little walk” to the park, and finally went to pick Seamus up. He said he’d had a good day, but hoo-boy, he pitched a couple of doozy tantrums before I managed to get some pizza bread sustenance in him. One he ate though, his attitude improved and he (and Gilbert) are both now in the sweet embrace of sleep. I have to wake them up in a minute to go to Spanish class. Oh, yeah. Seamus has more homework in his folder. Trace and decorate the letter “A”. I see this going really well.

All in all, it’s great for him to have some time to play with other kids, learn some things, and make it on his own. Gilbert also loves the time one on one with whoever he’s with. This morning, we got home and he started asking for milk. I’ve decided to curtail his milk drinking because he’s not eating anything. Back when he was eating everything and then some, a lot of milk was fine, but now…not so much. He got ready to pout about it, but quickly recovered when I said he could have water now, or wait for lunch to drink more milk. He wasn’t happy about it, but he was no longer freaking out. Instead, I ate a nectarine, and then he decided he wanted a nectarine. I offered him a bite of mine. “No, Gilbert want Gilbert’s own nectarine!” I got one out and made to cut it up. “Mama, Gilbert eat it whole.” I had him sit on the floor in the kitchen, and wouldn’t you know, he ate the whole thing! He said, “Nectarines habe pits in them!” “Gilbert eat the pit!” “Gilbert eat THREE pits!” So excited. Gotta go! I’ve got more to say, but it’ll have to wait!

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