The New School

I have angsted on and off here about finding a preschool for M.  We have absolutely loved the place where M is now.  Looooooved it.  We love her teachers, we love the philosophy, we love the location and the facilities.  Sure, there wasn’t much diversity amongst the students (one Asian kid, one 1/2 Asian kid, and two white-looking 1/4 asian kids in her class) or M’s teachers (all white), but this year all the other plusses outweighed our reservations.

The only problem with the current school is that they only do full-time care.  Beginning in the fall, I will no longer be working at this job (THANK GOD!!) and will be staying home with the new baby.   We want M to get the chance to learn and socialize with other kids, but we can’t afford to pay for full-time care if I have no income.

Thus began the painful search for part-time preschool.  You may remember the Kwanzaa School which failed our high standards.  Also, we rejected the Uber-Liberal-No-Structure-Provides-The-Preschoolers-with-Toy-Guns School at the Unitarian Church*, two ridiculously expensive only full-time Montessori Schools,  and one Coloring-With-Black-Crayons-is-Illegal and Kids-Are-Not-Allowed-to-Read-Until-their-Teeth-Fall-Out Waldorf school.**

We also nixed another couple options because they only had classes two times a week for two hours.  I didn’t think that would give me enough time to get the HFC to doctor appointments and to spend some special alone bonding time with her/him each day.  After hearing about some other adoptive parents’ struggles with attachment, I wanted to make sure that the HFC would get lots of one on one time with me without making M feel slighted.

We finally settled on a very lovely Montessori program that has half days five days a week.  One of the teachers is Asian and the class is about half Asian or hapa. The rest of the kids are white.  I would have prefered a little bit more of a mix, but in the Midwest, 50% Asian is already unusual.  It was an added plus that Tootie will also be in M’s class.

Montessori seems like a good fit for us.  It is a nice balance of my belief that little kids should be allowed to play whatever the hell they want (within reason) and A’s intense academic focus.  In the Montessori classroom, the kids are allowed to flit around and play with anything in the room.  BUT! All the things in the room are craftily designed to teach them things like life skills, math, writing and sensory development.  Sneaky, eh?  They can play with anything, but they will inevitably end up learning how to do their multiplication tables.  

The only hitch in my plan to have M start there part-time when my job ends and the new baby (hopefully) comes home is that M is particularly bad at big transitions.   When she started at her current school it took her a long time to get comfortable and make friends.   I really don’t want her to have to face a new school adjustment and the new baby adjustment at the same time.  Good lord, it would be like her whole world was crashing down around her ears.

So we made the difficult decision to move M to the new school full-time when their mid-june session begins.  It is going to be a hard transition for her.   I could cry right now thinking about taking her away from her friends at the old school and throwing her to the wolves at the new school.  (Tootie won’t be in her class until fall).

We have thought about it a lot and I hope it is for the best.  When we are in China and the new sister or brother turns her whole world upside down, I want to be able to talk to her about all the things that will be the *same* when she gets home.   I hope that the three months at the new school will make the new school a familar and safe place for her to go every day.  I hope she will have friends and a solid routine at the new school to anchor her when things at home get a little chaotic.

She is such a sweet, sensitive girl.  I hope it all works out ok.

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*I know! What the FUCK is up with the school at the Unitarian Church giving kids GUNS??  Most Unitarians are the most pacifist folks I have ever met.  At our house, guns are not toys.  Also, I have heard that most of the gun play at that school involves the boys chasing the girls around and shooting them.  Uh, that is SO NOT OK with me.

**Oh, if I offended you because you chose a school like one of those I rejected, please don’t email me to complain.  Obviously YOU didn’t choose the same kind of school WE did, am I bitching at you for not liking MY choice??  I am not saying Waldorf isn’t great for SOME kids, I am just saying it isn’t a good fit for my "fairies are for kids who aren’t serious about acadmenics" husband family.