John's first week of pre-school

John on his first day of preschool. Sept. 11, 2007.

As I did with Zoey in Texas, 5 other moms and I are doing a co-op preschool. This is something I wouldn't have considered if I hadn't first done it out of sheer necessity--preschools in our neighborhood in Dallas were a bit pricey and we were and are a bit cheap--but now I continue the co-op preschool because I love it. For me it is the right balance of home school and having a little free time to myself. We have class two days a week and I should teach once every six weeks. We rotate teacher from week to week but keep the same routine. John loves it.

John and his class.

John is going through a color with the whole box of crayons phase. This way everything looks like his favorite tie dye shirt. By the way since someone asked, John doesn't wear that shirt every day. I know he is in a lot of pictures in it but that's because there are actually two tie-dye shirts and they are both his favorite. He wanted to wear one on the first day of school but the clean one had several large holes because John thought it would be an even a cooler shirt if he cut it up. Needless to say I made him wear something a bit more respectable.

I wanted him to look as respectable as possible because I am a bit worried about John being the problem child in the group. Before preschool started we had to write a profile about our child to share with the other teachers. As I wrote it, I became nervous, in the first paragraph John wasn't sounding too good. I might as well include a portion of his profile here:

John doesn't listen. We joke that his name should be John John John John John! He is not ignoring you he is just deep in his own world. (I'm not as fortunate as Christy to know much about my child's imaginary world.) John takes things apart. He went through a period where he felt it was his duty to remove all the cupboard handles in the house. He runs and jumps constantly and when he is in a chair he has a hard time sitting still. He has atrocious table manners. And as you all now know he is allergic to peanuts.

Now that you know the worst, let me say John does have a few redeeming qualities--besides good looks and a winning smile. First, he loves stories. A surefire way to get John to sit still and be quiet and stop taking things apart is to read to him. He will sit still for hours on end--I've never gone beyond three hours but I suspect he could go much longer. He also is happy to sit in a corner and read his books. (He has no idea that he can't read.) John also loves to follow commands. Often when he is underfoot I ask him to build me a castle and usually he will go and do this. In general John likes to please, he just doesn't have a good sense of appropriate behavior (Why shouldn't he take the toilet seat off the toilet and wear it around his neck? It seemed the thing to do.) He has a big heart and is almost impossible to offend or hurt and is very affectionate. Sometimes you may need to remind him to be gentle when he gives you or another child a hug.

Sorry about the toilet seat story once again, but I thought since so many of my friends and family are far away you might appreciate hearing a little bit about what John is like at 3.
Thankfully John behaved on the first day of school. He listened and was obedient and as far as we know he didn't take apart any of their appliances.