Dear Silver BMW

I realize that you have quite a bit of money.  I know that you work hard selling Lipofuze.  And good on you for being successful but that doesn’t mean that you have to behave like an ass.

I know that the daycare parking lot is small and your big car has issues fitting nicely into a spot but that doesn’t mean that you have to parellel park across three spots so that no one comes near your car every single day.

Maybe you should park in the back by the dumpster.  No one parks there and it is guaranteed that no one will go near your car.

In case you were wondering I was the one that complained to the centre director,  I think that your behaviour is ridiculous.

Kind Regards,

Meli

P.S.  Nice car

So…

The day care lost Maks.

It happened last week.

I went to pick him up and I found him outside with the preschool class.  The thing is it wasn’t his preschool class.  I wasn’t worried at first.  I know that the preschool classes consolidate kids into one room as closing time approaches.  This way some of the teachers get to leave early even though not all of their kids have been picked up yet.

I didn’t get worried when the teacher he was with asked me for ID.  I thought that was a good step.  She was making sure I was who I said I was because she had never met me before.  That part made gave me confidence in the daycare.

What freaked me out was when she looked in her book and couldn’t find my name on her sheet.  Then when she asked what Maks’ full name was and if he was in Preschool B.  When I told her ‘no, he is in preschool A’ I was expecting her to look on another sheet instead a look of panic crossed her face.  Oh, preschool A is inside and I should take him back.

That’s right.

Maks’ teachers left him alone in the playground.  The teachers in the playground did not realize that Maks was not one of the kids that they should have been looking after.

It wasn’t until I walked into the Preschool A classroom and asked if they misplaced someone that they realized that they lost my child.  Apparently his teachers did a head count before heading into the centre and they thought that they had all the kids that they were supposed to have.  And the teachers that were outside were all student teachers that had just been at the daycare for a couple of weeks so they were not familiar with the kids that they were supposed to be watching.  So it was a miscount by Maks’ teachers and a non – recognition by the teachers outside that resulted in my child being misplaced.

Things ended well.  His teachers apologized.  Maks was fine.  He got to spend some extra time in the playground.  But I was freaked the hell out.

So I went to the centre director.  I didn’t want to get anyone fired but I didn’t want this happening again to anyone.  The only thing that kept running through my head was what if this had happened on a field trip, things could have been so much worse.  So something had to be done.  I spoke to the centre director again today.  She told me that Maks’ teachers are being reprimanded and retrained.

But my trust in the daycare is now nonexistent.

Maks went on a field trip today.

It wasn’t his first field trip.  His first field trip was when he was 18 months old.  His toddler class all put on their matching orange t-shirts, sunscreen and summer hats.  All 18 of them held on to a rope and walked to the local grocery store.  They learned about colours that day.  They looked at peppers, apples and oranges.  Then when the excitement of produce wore off all 18 on a rope were escorted into the bakery back room where they got to decorate a cake.  When I picked Maks up he was exhausted.  He was using his limited vocabulary to tell me all about first ever field trip.

I cried that day because Maks it became apparent that Maks was growing up.

His second field trip was last fall.  This time his preschool class donned their orange shirts and piled into a yellow school bus.  They rode in the bus for thirty minutes until the got to a pumpkin patch.  They spent the day picking pumpkins, eating cookies, and singing songs.  When I picked Maks up he was exhausted.  He was so excited about his first ever bus ride and talked about it until he fell asleep.

I fretted that day.  I was worried about how he would do, would he, the youngest, handle the experience that the older kids had already been through?  Would he cry or be scared?  He wasn’t.  He loved it.  It was fun.

Today was another field trip day.  Once again the preschool class donned orange tshirts, sunhats, and backpacks.  Maks is now old enough to be responsible for his own bag.  He will be carrying his extra clothes and water bottle with him.  As I waved from the window as he got ready to show the ‘little’ kids the proper way to sit on the bus.

I couldn’t help but tear up a little.

The person waving back wasn’t an 18 month old getting ready to go count peppers.  It was an almost three year old who was holding the hand of one of the new kids in the preschool class telling them how fun the bus ride was going to be.

He knows, he’s done it before.

I walked into Maks’ daycare the other day and I found on of his student teachers having circle time with the kids.  When she does circle time, she tends to focus more on singing and dancing than reading or show and share.  She makes it very interactive.  With the other teachers, they multitask.  They will be doing show and share and talking to another mommy about eczema treatments.  This one doesn’t do that, she focuses on the kids. 

This time was no exception.  She had all the kids up and they were all singing and dancing to the same song.  As I got Maks’ into his indoor shoes I recognized the song that she had the whole room singing (don’t fault me for this sometimes it is hard to make out what a room full of two and three year olds are singing).  She was singing Nas’ I can to them.  Now Nas isn’t known for his child friendly daycare type songs.  And this song is in no way appropriate for a daycare classroom when it is sung in its entirety.  But she was limiting the song to the chorus and I must say I was very impressed. 

I love the fact that she was telling the kids that yes; you can be whatever it is you want to be if you work hard at it.  The song is not about being rich.  It is about being successful, it is telling kids that you do have it in you to be anything that you want to be.  

Dreams are not easy things to catch.  But if you really want something and you put your mind to it, you can achieve that dream and do whatever it is that you want to be.  As much as I think that there are some teachers at the daycare that see their jobs as just a job, there are some that I see that what to actually help kids ready for the big, bad world out there.  I think Maks’ student teacher falls into the latter group.  I hope as she experiences the big, bad world her priorities don’t change.  

*For those of you that are unfamiliar with Nas ‘I can’ I put the lyrics at the end of this post.  Keep in mind she was just singing the chorus to the kids. 

“I Can”

[Kids]
I know I can (I know I can)
Be what I wanna be (be what I wanna be)
If I work hard at it (If I work hard at it)
I’ll be where I wanna be (I’ll be where I wanna be)

[Nas]
Be, B-Boys and girls, listen up
You can be anything in the world, in God we trust
An architect, doctor, maybe an actress
But nothing comes easy it takes much practice
Like, I met a woman who’s becoming a star
She was very beautiful, leaving people in awe
Singing songs, Lina Horn, but the younger version
Hung with the wrong person
Got her strung on that
Heroin, cocaine, sniffin up drugs all in her nose…
Coulda died, so young, now looks ugly and old
No fun cause now when she reaches for hugs people hold they breath
Cause she smells of corrosion and death
Watch the company you keep and the crowd you bring
Cause they came to do drugs and you came to sing
So if you gonna be the best, I’ma tell you how,
Put your hands in the air, and take a vow

[Chorus - 2x (Nas and Kids)]
I know I can (I know I can)
Be what I wanna be (be what I wanna be)
If I work hard at it (If I work hard at it)
I’ll be where I wanna be (I’ll be where I wanna be)

[Nas]
Be, B-Boys and girls, listen again
This is for grown looking girls who’s only ten
The ones who watch videos and do what they see
As cute as can be, up in the club with fake ID
Careful, ‘fore you meet a man with HIV
You can host the TV like Oprah Winfrey
Whatever you decide, be careful, some men be
Rapists, so act your age, don’t pretend to be
Older than you are, give yourself time to grow
You thinking he can give you wealth, but so
Young boys, you can use a lot of help, you know
You thinkin life’s all about smokin weed and ice
You don’t wanna be my age and can’t read and write
Begging different women for a place to sleep at night
Smart boys turn to men and do whatever they wish
If you believe you can achieve, then say it like this

[Chorus]

On Thursday, Millhouse and I are going in to meet with Maks teacher for report card day.  I always have mixed feelings about going into Maks’ report card meetings. 

I know that all kids learn at their own pace and that I should not be comparing him to the other kids.  Some kids are better at creative things, others are more analytical and Maks will develop at his own pace.  But I am also unease about taking some of Maks’ teachers seriously.  There are a couple of his teachers that are right out of school, I bet they still use Oxyclean or some other acne medicine, and I find it so hard to take them seriously. 

I know that I shouldn’t think like that.  But I really can’t help it.  In my head I am thinking I have a child telling me about my child and I can’t seem to get past that.

At the beginning of every month the daycare sends home a newsletter and calendar.  I usually go through both to make sure that I know what is going on in Maks’ adventures at daycare.  But for some reason this month I missed the line that said that they were starting to do letter week. 

At the beginning of every week, us parents have to bring in pictures of things that start with the letter of the week.  I like the slacker that I am when it comes to the daycare haven’t been.  But in my defense I hadn’t seen any other parents handing in pictures either until Monday. 

On Monday it seemed like every other parent brought in pictures for the letter A and I was there empty handed.  Instead of playing it off like I knew what was going on and I was rebelling against the daycare again, I asked about it.  Mean teacher Kay, who is now being really nice and I think she may be reading this blog, actually explained the program to me and on Tuesday Maks took in some pictures of airplanes and anchors. 

Now I got these pictures from the grocery store flyers.  Kay suggested that next time I use pictures from magazines as they stand out more on the letter board.  I can accommodate this the only thing is the only magazines I read are gossip rags like People and Star and I don’t think that the pictures I can get from those magazines are appropriate for Maks’ class.  I don’t really read parenting magazines.  I did when Maks was first born but my subscription ended when he was a year old and I never renewed it.  I may have to look into getting another subscription for the sole purpose of letter of the week.  Because I mean for W I could take a picture of weight loss products and for A I could take a picture of Angelina Jolie but neither of these seem very appropriate.

The daycare has implemented a new program in which all of your child’s possessions must be labeled, before the labels were limited to outerwear, shoes and backpacks.  Now everything from hats to spare socks have to be labeled.  

Now the daycare rules and I never really get along and I didn’t label all Maks stuff.  I am kind of a rebel when it comes to the daycare rules and I think that some of them are just the daycare ladies trying to flex some muscle.  Well the daycare ladies didn’t appreciate my attempt at rebellion and gave me a bagful of Maks stuff back and told me not to bring it back until everything was labeled.      

So I had to jump off phenterminereview.com and start looking up personalized backpacks and clothing labels for kids and I found an entire website dedicated to labels.  Apparently my daycare is not the only one that is label crazy.  Who knew?  So I ordered 75 personalized labels that attach to clothing tags for $20.  Which I thought was pretty reasonable.  I could have gotten iron on labels which were cheaper but I don’t iron so that wouldn’t have worked. 

Now I am off to attach labels to every single piece of clothing that Maks owns.

Maks has learned to kiss.  Before his kiss was a tilt of the cheek so you could kiss him or this mouth wide open cheek licking that sometimes ended in a bite.  He has now mastered the art of puckering and he kisses on the lips. 

This worries me.  Maks mastering the art of kissing isn’t what worries me.  I am worried that he will use this new found knowledge at the daycare…..on Miranda…..in the corner and I will end up in the office explaining his innocence once again. 

I am really hoping that he and Miranda keep there relationship limited to hugging hello and goodbye but if it moves up a notch to kissing, Miranda’s mommy and I will be spending a lot of time in the office and I am going to need a boatload of wrinkle lotion because this is stressing me out!

P.S.  for those of you that know Miranda is Maks’ love.  They have been a couple since Maks was 14 months and Miranda was 12 months.  They have been inseparable since then and are absolutely miserable without each other.  And yes, Miranda’s mommy and I have been called into the office before because they used to like to hug each other in the corner on occasion when they were both in the toddler room.

Maks has been having a difficult time with his new preschool class.  Things have gotten a lot better than they once were, he has some friends now and he is getting along better than before.  He doesn’t cry when I drop him off anymore but he does rush the door when I show up and ask if we can go home now.  So this is a major improvement.  I am counting down the days until he moves to the kindergarten room.  Not because I am in a rush to have him grow up but because I really think that having a new room and teacher would be good for him. 

But I am still having an issue with one of Maks teachers.  She has gone from being really friendly, to somewhat distant, to downright rude.  When I drop him off in the mornings I sing out a big good morning to everyone, so Maks will do the same.  She doesn’t acknowledge him or I.  When I pick him up she will downright ignore me and talk to another parent.  If another parent isn’t there she will go talk to the kids.  It is gotten to the point where both Millhouse and I are starting to call her out on her behaviour.  In the mornings we will say something to the effect of:  “Good morning Kay”  and when she doesn’t respond we say louder:  “Good morning Kay, Maks is here and is wishing you a good morning.”  This is when she responds.  The evenings are similar.  Most evenings she doesn’t even say goodnight when we leave even though I make it a point to have Maks say goodnight to each of his teachers.  I am not sure if Millhouse and I have done something to offend her but I find this behaviour unacceptable.  As a professional who I am paying to look after my child I expect to be acknowledged when I am speaking to her and not ignored. 

I would like to go to the daycare director and request that Maks change rooms because if she is this rude to us to our faces, I can only imagine how she behaves towards Maks during the day, but I am concerned of the ramifications for him.  The teachers at his daycare are extremely close and I don’t want them all labeling Maks and not being nice to him. 

I really wish that I didn’t have to be mature in this situation because if this was somewhere where my child would not be adversely affected I would give Kay a piece of my mind.

Maks is hating his preschool class.  He puts up a fight in the mornings and in the afternoon he can’t wait to get out there.  He is constantly asking for his toddler teacher. 

This morning I bent and I took him over to see her. 

He was so happy.  He was taking off his coat and getting ready to go play with his old friends again.  When I told him that our visit was over and that it was time to go over to his new class he was really upset. 

His old teacher saw how upset he was, and said that she would walk with him to his new room.  He loved that.  He took her by the hand and brought her into his room and showed her all of his new things. 

Then she tried to leave. 

To say he was upset would be an understatement.  

My heart broke for him.  His preschool teacher was not pleased with me either.  I know that having his old teacher walk with us into his new room was not the best decision on my part but I don’t know how to get him to like his new room.  He has been in there a month now and things are progressively getting worse.  He has reverted back to wanting his bottle all the time and if I leave his sight for too long he gets really upset. 

I am not sure what I should do.  Should I keep him in the class a little longer and see how he does?  Should I ask to have him switched to another preschool class?  I am not sure what to do because Maks has gone from loving daycare to hating it.