Greenie

I am morally opposed to preschool. Well, that's not necessarily true, but I am financially opposed to preschool. Who in their right mind would pay $200 a month to send their kids to preschool for two days a week? The answer to that question is a resounding EVERYONE! Everyone in Texas sends their toddlers to preschool which really has left me in a pickle because no one wants to do a co-op preschool with me. I can think of about a million things I would rather do with $200/month before putting Gwen in preschool, the first of which would be getting a car that would be less likely to spontaneously combust than the one I currently drive. I'm not picky. It doesn't have to be a new car, or a fancy car, just one that won't blow up. That's a good way to spend two hundred dollars a month....but preschool? Come on.

That being said my mental well-being has been somewhat questionable lately, mostly due to lack of sleep I think. Poor Gwen is really getting the short end of the stick because I spend all day just trying to get enough sleep so that I won't go insane but it never happens so I spend all day in kind of a weird dreary little funk and with an exceptionally short temper. So, I had to do something for her sake.

So I signed her up for this little class at the Rec center. It is just once a week for three hours, but I get to drop her off and then go home and get something done (I always claim I want to clean but it ends up more like I am still doing the dreary funk thing only I don't have to feel bad because Gwen is somewhere else having fun). The class was less than half the cost of preschool, plus no registration fees plus it was only a month and I was desperate.

Gwen was so excited for the first day of "preschool". We got her little lunch all packed and sang songs all the way. When we got there I was a little embarrassed because ALL of the kids had these cute little backpacks with coordinating lunch sacks tied on the back. Please see exhibit A below.

Exhibit A


Gwen's lunch, however, looked more like exhibit B below.


exhibit B


Except that not only was it in a plastic grocery bag with a knot tied on top, but I had also tried to write her name on the bag (silly me, I didn't know the other children would have embossed lunch bags) and I couldn't find a magic marker, so I tried to write it with a black pen. Ever tried to write something on a plastic bag with a pen? Doesn't work. So it had various renditions of "Gwen" scribbled on all parts of the sack in faded ink. Awesome.

As if this wasn't bad enough we had stopped at Randall's on the way to preschool to pick up some Valentines for her class party. I grabbed a box of valentines and a package of candy and once we got there began ripping the perforations and writing Gwen's name on the "from" line. How did I know that EVERY SINGLE CHILD and I am NOT kidding, had made homemade valentines for the class. Homemade with stamps, ribbons, hearts, etc. And then to make it worse each child also had a very elaborate Valentine for the teacher. Whoops.

I am a fast thinker though so I threw an extra Mickey Mouse valentine and snickers (No I did not even have tape to tape the snickers to the valentines) in for the teacher. Phew. Dodged that bullet.

Poor Gwen. It's a good thing this is just pre-pre-school and not high school. That would have been social suicide for sure. I mean, I just figured it was a short little class with no required materials to bring, how was I to know that I was supposed to go spend the big bucks on a backpack with matching lunch pail? No one told me. And the whole Valentine thing.... I didn't even get Blaine a valentine let alone Gwen's teacher. Handcrafted valentines. Sheesh.

Someone should really write a book about this whole parenting thing because at the rate I am going my cute little adorable, born to be loved daughter is going to be a social outcast, all because I pack her lunch in a plastic HEB bag.

*This is just a little sidenote to personally thank my mother for purchasing the Doc Marten shoes for me in the 7th grade. I know they were like $90 and totally pointless, but everyone who was anyone had them. I can't believe I actually had some. I would never never NEVER spend $90 on shoes for Gwen. I can't even fork over the $14.99 for a backpack for preschool ( don't worry I plan on sending her with a backpack to kindergarten, you know when they actually are supposed to take stuff to school.).