As I’ve mentioned before, Kelly and I had a very special year in her Cooperative Preschool.  Taking child development lessons and then working alongside an experienced early childhood teacher for a year was an extremely enriching experience for me.  I’ve always played with the girls, but on my terms: wild crafts, crazy dancing…well, you read this blog.  I don’t need to tell you.  At Kelly’s school, I learned to play with playdough, thoughtfully, and without notice of the time.  I especially loved playing on the city rug with the little guys and their trucks.  Heavens knows there are no trucks in this house.  We had fires that consumed our town, and blizzards that buried us, and dinosaurs that ate our Rescue Helicopters.  It was serious business, my Rescue Team made up entirely of 2 year old boys.

I learned to notice every small social growth step.  I learned to say to small people, “Thank you for sharing”, and “I love it when you cover your mouth when you sneeze”.  I learned that all day long, there are reasons to hug and applaud our children.  The school taught me to look through the mundane of making the same playdough shape for the 100th time, and see that a child just learned shape, color, and texture, while strengthening his imagination AND gaining the fine motor skills needed to write with a pencil someday.  ALL of that in 10 minutes at the playdough table.

In the end, this year represented an important transition for me: I stopped viewing my service to my family as a sacrifice and a chore.  Suddenly, my service became my own mission; a self-perpetuating energy source that I used to feel when I worked outside of the home.  My days go by quickly, and I hardly have enough time to do even half of what I wish to accomplish, and so very little of it seems centered around the housework.  Don’t get me wrong, most of it IS housework, but those are tasks to be finished so I can get to the real “stuff”.  I allow the girls to play much more independently now, as was a natural occurrence now that they are getting older, but also, because in their play, I hear them learning reading comprehension with their imaginative made up games.  I hear them learning to share on their own terms.  I hear them living their own lives, with me more as a gentle guide, and less as a coach, screeching at the sidelines.

Sometimes, the answer is not complicated.  I didn’t find it in my years of college, or walking The Great Wall of China, or during any one of the hundreds of hours I’ve spent in medical meetings.  This truth I found by spending a year of wintery Tuesdays on the floor of tiny basement classroom, surrounded by the world’s most amazing 2 year olds, gluing hearts and singing songs.  My first trip through Preschool, I flunked out.  Unless there were awards given for the “3 year old who cried the most”, in which case, I was the YWCA’s Preschool Valedictorian, Class of 1975.  But I think I can finally say, I’ve done it: I’ve earned my Preschool GED.

As a year end gift for our amazing teacher, we wanted to give her something unique.  Gardening is a big hobby of Mrs. L.’s., and someone thought to give her a garden bench.  A grandparent of a student in Kelly’s class is an accomplished artist, and volunteered to paint our bench, and create a one-of-kind masterpiece.  We gathered one evening to put the kids’ hand prints on the bench, and Mrs. Doreen Oldenettel turned those hand prints into nature.  She added their names to their little hands, and put the most appropriate quote on the back of the bench, “Sit, Ponder, Let Your Mind Wander”. If you live in the Indianapolis area and are interested in working with Doreen Oldenettel, please send me a note and I will put you in touch with her.  Of the many teacher gifts I have helped organize, I must say, this is truly my favorite.