Saturday, October 29, 2005

wee little recluse

Yesterday I met some moms who were discussing how their kids liked going to preschool, and comparing to what degree they were enjoying it, and then I chimed in "I didn't like preschool at all."
Screeech! [Incredulous stare.]
"You didn't?!"
"Well no...you see, I liked to just do my own thing, live in my own little world at home."
They still didn't understand. I guess they never met a reclusive preschooler before, past or present.
I later discussed it with Kevin and he said "I don't remember preschool."
(He doesn't remember much of his childhood, sometimes I think he fell down a well at some point, causing memory loss.)
I said "you don't? [insert heckling here] I remember alot!"
So this is what I remember of Childrens Creative Center:

1.It was run by an "old" couple that creeped me out. I put old in quotes because in hindsight they probably weren't that old, maybe in their 40s. But the woman had dark puffy hair and big 80's magenta-tinted glasses so you never saw her eyes, it just made her seem evil. Whenever I saw her, I got the same sensation I get when I see a cop in my rearview mirror, even if I'm not speeding. And her husband, which I thought looked like Ed McMahon (yes I knew who he was back then, I watched alot of TV), had patches on his blazer sleeves. To this day, when I see blazer-sleeve-patches, I think of that guy.
2. They asked us each to bring a box of crayons. My mom bought me the coolest crayons on the market and I was so excited. Then to my horror, they took them from me and dumped them in a community crayon tub! Occasionally later on I would find broken stubs of my once pristine crayons, and get depressed. Crayon Communists!
3. The music teacher was very ambitious. We learned how to play our own halfsize violins and even how to rosin our bows and what rosin and violin bows are made from. We sung songs from the Police's Synchonicity album and learned every gruesome verse from The Cat Came Back.
4. A hispanic lady came in occasionally and taught us Spanish. Yeah like that was gonna stick.
5. We had ballet class. Ballet class is a cruel joke for the biggest girl in the class who wears grey sweatshirts and jeans to class while the other little princesses wear leotards. We all had to wear pink tutus.
6. I played Simon for the first time and got annoyed by it and gave it to some other kid after a couple of tries.
7. Our class got in trouble one time for being too loud (which I always felt was unjust because I was a good quiet girl) and the teacher made us all hold our arms in the air for seemingly hours. In reality it was probably only a few minutes, but man, that was rough.
8. I saw my first "tantrum." It was like watching a train wreck right before my eyes. "What's wrong with that guy?!" I thought "He's got problems."
9. I had my first headache outside in the play area. I remember walking up to one of the teachers and trying to communicate that my head hurt and she didn't believe me. I was frustrated that she thought I would lie, but after all I was the little girl that cried and said "I want my mom" the entire first day. I guess I could have had other motives.
10. We had 3 computers to use/play on. I wasn't really into them-- but I've made up for that now. :)

3 comments:

won tong said...

OH I JUST BOUT DIED LAUGIN WAS THAT PIXIE LAND IN CALI? I HAVE YOU AND ANNA ON AN AUDIO TAPE TALKING ABOUT PRE SHOOL.. IF I CAN FIND IT WOULD YA WANT A COPY..IT IS FUNNY...

laura said...

i have 3 things that stick out in my mind about pre-school/montessori school:
1) hearing kids who weren't asleep getting spanked & feigning sleep so i wouldn't, but did anyway
2) the teacher forcing a girl to drink lemon juice when she was bad
3) when i took the entrance exam to get into my new school in 2nd grade, i told the teacher i did good, but they had said i rushed through it a little. she turned to another teacher and said, "typical"

pre-school sucked!

on a happier note, thanks for the nice comment on my blog :)

Unknown said...

I'm the only person I know who got expelled from preschool for insubordination. I was two, but extremely bright and vocal for my age. After my mom dropped me off, I unlocked the baby gate on the door, went down the hall to the main office, told the director of the preschool my name and phone number and that I wanted to go home.

After four days of this, they told my mother that I had "emotional problems" and not to bring me back. According to one version of the story I heard, she stood in the parking lot for the whole morning, furious, and telling every parent who would listen what had happened.

Good times, good times...