Schooled

These pictures are unrelated to anything, but they will serve as a belated happy 30th and 25th birthday post to my wonderful brother and sister. It was fun celebrating with both of you. Thanks for being a great Aunt and Uncle (And Godmother and Godfather) to our children. Pete, I know that this pic is of Samantha, not of you, but I didn't get any good ones of you at your party, just a few of Sam. You are great, but not quite as photo worthy as your adorable daughter, apparently.

In other news, I have officially registered Luke for pre-school. He will start in a 2 & 1/2's program and will be in school from 9-12 two mornings a week. I don't know why this felt like such a big decision. I mean, it's like pre-pre-pre K. Coloring and singing and the like. I started where every first time Mom starts anything..........with my friends. A few of my friends already have their Luke's age tots in a preschool program, most are starting in the fall, and a couple are waiting or did wait until after age 3 to start. My girlfriends are pretty well spread over about a 25 mile radius from my house....so many of the schools that they were looking at were out of my driving range for a bi-weekly commitment. Many of the schools in my immediate vicinity have cut offs of Feb 1st for their 2.5 class. As Luke is Feb 13th, he didn't make the cut. So....to the Internet I turned.

I found Chesterbrook Academy. There is one about 1/2 mile from my house, and practically adjacent to our gym. I called. Turns out that "Academy" is fancy faux school talk for daycare. Now, in no way do I have anything against daycare, but I want a true preschool, not a daycare where my child joins all of the other full time daycare kids two mornings a week. Plus, it was clearly priced at daycare prices. Ouch. I didn't even go look.

Then I found a Goddard School about a mile from our house. Set up a tour. Was totally impressed. Clean, organized, safe. They have kiddy yoga, and music, and computers, and Spanish and all sorts of fabulous things. Super duper. I was totally lapping up the Kool-Aide. Their program seemed a little long to me (8.30 till 12.30) and I wasn't sure that I was ready to commit to that much school at only 2.5. Only after they suckered me in with the facilities and curriculum did we got to price. Oh! Over $500/month for pre-school? Oh! And it's year round! So I have the great opportunity to send my son to learn how to color and sing and do some downward facing dogs for $6,000/year at the age of 2.5. Super.

I kept talking to other Mom's. I found programs with waiting lists, and crazy lotteries, and parents who have to show up at 3 am to stand in line to get their kids into a preschool. I found a couple of church programs, but they were only from 9-11. By the time I got there and dragged both kids of the car and dropped Luke off, it seemed like it would be time to pick him up again. One friend in DC had highly recommended getting involved in a co-op. She said that it was a great way to really know what was going on at the school, to be involved, and vested in your child's education and educator's. She raved about the like minded parents and kids who were a part of her children's co-op.

I finally found one in our area that would take 2.5's. We did the tour there two weeks ago. We liked it. It's in an old farmhouse. It's homey. It's warm, and inviting, and the kids appeared to be well taken care of, and loved. At this age, their focus is more around encouraging play and exploration and expression (art, music etc) than a rigid curriculum of the 3 R's and computers and the like. It seemed more my pace, and Luke's pace. We signed him up.

I live in the NE. We have probably 25 secondary schools in our relatively immediate area that cost well over $25,000/year. There is a lot of mania about going to the "right" schools, and about knowing the "right" people. It can get a little crazy, to me. One of my biggest fears is buying into that Mommy Mania. The parent trap of 3 bagillion "exclusive" sports camps, the most expensive schools, the pushing and pulling and performance-chasing that can happen as we all want what is best for our kids. I'm scared of it. I really am. I truly believe that it will take a concerted effort on our part to remember what is most important to US, and to OUR kids, and not worry about what other people are doing with their kids. I feel as though we are spoon fed this thing about giving our kids the "best", which all too often, at least around here, simply means the most expensive or most exclusive. I want to be able to remember that the "best" to us is whatever will enable our kids to best become the people that they want to be. I admit, not proudly, that there was a part of me that worried, for one brief fleeting moment.........."But will Luke be BEHIND if he isn't learning Spanish and computers and trigonometry at 2.5?". I only entertained the thought for a second, but it was there, before I resolutely buried it. I don't know where this dread fear of "behind" even comes from. Is it just from growing up around here? Is it a total innate parent fear thing? Do the schools plant it in us as they trot out their fancy curriculum's and shiny brochures? Is it my own issues as I didn't go to a school that I enjoyed or related to from 6-12th grade, and want my kids to be somewhere that they feel loved and supported and challenged? Is it the "Joneses"? Damn those Joneses.

I firmly believe that Luke and Julia will be the people that they are because of who they are, innately, and because of the time and care and love that they get, from us, and from all who love them. I can't believe that the worry about the "right school" already flirted with me, and he isn't yet 2 years old.

I hope I did okay. I hope I found a good balance of play and structure, and safety, and kind teachers, and great classmates and parents, and all the rest. I hope that it's a place that Luke loves, and I love. And I hope that I only get more confident as I face many, MANY more school/camp/sports/tutoring/music/art or whatever decisions down the road. These are the easy ones, these preschool decisions. It only gets harder. Sigh.

PS - To any Blogger users out there.........do you have any idea why my paragraphs sometimes don't stay separated into paragraphs, and why I can't indent my paragraphs like normal? I type it out that way and then when I publish it it comes out as one big post lump. It's maddening.