We've spent two weeks IN DANK REGRET, and the drop-offs aren't getting any easier. Robert still staunchly decries the American educational system and begs and pleads not to be a part of it. I can understand how he'd rather spend his time building spaceships out of stepladders in his living room, but there's also the wild card of this teacher, of whom reports are getting worse.
That's the frustrating bit. These are reports. I don't see any of it, because I'm out the door earlier and at my desk when the shit goes down. I've met the teacher exactly once, at Orientation Day, and the initial vibe was ... meh. But my wife is the one who does daily drop-off, and who sits for 20 minutes during parent/child reading time, and who has to chase Robert down when makes a break for it, past the screws and into the exercise yard. She's also the one who interacts regularly with the teacher, whose latest bit of chicanery was to move Robert's curriculum night to the morning, when working parents can't attend, so she can attend her own kid's curriculum night at a different school.
When you mention stuff like this to the principal, you are met with a what-can-you-do shrug, since this is the teacher's union we're talking about. Teachers are really hard to uproot once they're rooted, to the point that if she duct-taped the kids to the wall, stripped naked, and told them dirty jokes for three hours she might get a stern talking-to.
I'm trying to reserve a little judgment on this, and hope these are mere adjustment issues that will fade with time. But the rest of the family is not happy. My wife is plotting the teacher's ruination, Robert is using floor plans to model his escape routes, and TwoBert spends his days telling his sitter, "Robert home RIGHT NOW!"
The stress has addled us a bit lately, and the other day found the boys and me unconsciously blowing off a little steam. Robert had is bike, and TwoBert was in the stroller, and when we got to some security pylons at an intersection we starting racing around and slaloming through them. Then Robert chased us, and we chased him, and then the whole thing devolved into Demolition Stroller Derby. We'd start with some evasive action, whereby I'd turn the stroller on a dime to avoid getting rammed and TwoBert would squeal with delight as the harness saved him from centrifugal explusion. And we ran and swerved and piled on the screech-boom-bam sound effects for about half an hour, until Daddy needed to lie down in the grass until the world stopped spinning.
Thus a new relaxation game was invented. If you have a disgruntled kindergartener, a thrill-seeking two-year-old, the right conveyances, and a buttload of stress, I recommend it.
