and then we accidentally started preschool

Our regular childcare person called in sick on Monday. I panicked, but Scott kept his head. “Why don’t you call Heather and see if she can take Jonah?”

Heather, the woman founding the preschool where Jonah will be this fall, had mentioned at the open house that she would be offering part-time care in August. I hadn’t heard anything about it since so it hadn’t occurred to me to ask.

Yes, she is, and yes, he could come. So this morning (I couldn’t quite get it together to go yesterday), we went.

But first, we talked about it. I mentioned it to him the night before and that had gone fine. It was still largely theoretical from that vantage point.

When Jonah woke up this morning, I told him about it again.

“Today, you’re going to go to Heather’s preschool.”

“No,” he said.

“You don’t want to go?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You won’t be there.”

Good point.

“Well, that’s true. But I will drop you off, and I’ll stay with you for fourteen minutes,” he’s on this kick lately where that’s the number he asks for, when he’s negotiating with me about time to go (I say, we’re leaving in two minutes, and he says, no, FOURteen Mih-nutz.).

“You know how you always tell me you don’t want to go to Childwatch (the childcare at the YMCA) but then when I come to pick you up, you’re always playing with a toy and you don’t want to leave.”

He considers, seems to be with me on this point.

“Heather will be there, and some of the other kids we met. And I bet she’ll have the wooden train. And you can play with that. And the digger in the sandbox.”

“We could take turns on the digger.”

“Yes!”

“Maybe,” he says carefully, “we’ll see a little deer?”

Back in May, at his very first visit to Heather’s school (which is actually her house, located way up in the hills and perched among the treetops) she explained to him that baby deer often come to the back fence to visit.

Since that first time, we’ve been there twice. Once, he played one-on-one with Heather for about an hour while Scott and I watched from/dozed on the couch. And most recently at a potluck a few weeks ago for the participating families and kids to meet each other.

This morning, we entered through the side gate, walked around to the back door, which was open, and he marched right in like he owned the place. We came back out for him to choose a cubby on the deck. He complied and marched right back in. He immediately found a ride-on firetruck and got to work.

I hung around for a bit, played with him with the truck. A dad showed up with two kids, and left again shortly thereafter so Jonah and I got to hang back and watch the goodbye ritual. The kids and Heather stood at the “waving window” and the kids all waved at the dad, who made faces back and waved, and then left.

We looked at the terrarium and talked about what animal might soon live in it. Heather discussed the dirt and various plants and rocks with the kids, and then took out a book to start story time. Jonah seemed settled, so I made my exit. All the kids – and Jonah – waving goodbye to me from that window. He looked a little bummed, but he didn’t cry.

He didn’t cry!

Even in our last month at the old preschool he cried almost every day when I dropped him off, or clung to my legs in protest, at least.

Around 11-ish, Heather emailed me an iPhone pic of Jonah playing with the wooden train and a note that he’d been doing so, happily, for two hours.

Later she sent another brief email – that he was doing great and had been in the sandbox for an hour.

Go kiddo!

When I came to pick him up at 1:15, all the kids were sitting around the table, eating lunch – a lunch that I didn’t have to provide!

Jonah did not want to leave.

First, he showed me the instruments basket. He unloaded the whole thing on the deck. Then the other kids came over and everyone was thumping or blowing on something (drums, flutes, scrapy noisemakers). After a while I asked if he wanted to go home yet and he said, “No, the band is still playing!”

Then he showed me the setup for painting – jars, easel. “We should have a painting station at home,” he informed me.

Then it was back to the instruments – he enlisted me with a maraca and we marched around the deck.

At some point, he seemed ready enough to be done and I scooped him up and we said our good-byes.

And that was how we accidentally started preschool.

His official start date is mid-September but we may have a few more care days between now and then.

* * *

There is one other part of the story. As Jonah and I were in the car and about to leave this morning, Scott was going into the garage to get his bike and go for a ride.

Except he couldn’t because his bike, both of his bikes, had been stolen.

Needless to say he was a little upset.

I got out of the car, gave him a hug, tried to leave anyway, figuring we’d commiserate and file the police report when I got back.

Scott was really upset. He sat for a moment on our steps. Got up. Slammed the garage door and threw his water bottle against the sidewalk, hard, and it exploded.

Jonah saw this, and he started crying.

So I did what any mother would do. I made Scott apologize to Jonah. And then I made him get in the car and go with us to preschool. All the way there, Scott and Jonah discussed, philosophically, the nature of anger, and how one sometimes wants to throw things but that throwing things is wrong.

“You should not have done that,” Jonah noted.

Scott agreed. “Maybe if I had sat in my time-out chair, I would have calmed down and I wouldn’t have thrown the bottle.”

Jonah agreed.

At Heather’s, I explained to Jonah that Daddy was going to stay in the car in time-out (which he did willingly and was quite calmed by the time I returned).

During our arrival, I explained to Heather what had happened this morning. In case Jonah needed to talk about it some more, she’d have the context.

She understood. And she loaned us a book to all read together later. Which we did, three times: Ahn’s Anger.

It was perfect.