TheMommyBlog

Thursday, September 11, 2003 Family

Dylan hates going to preschool. Dreads it. Stays in bed, refusing to get up, and when finally carried into the kitchen for breakfast, embarks on a ferverent campaign to be allowed instead to watch a movie curled up in a blanket on the couch with goldfish and juice. After a while, it starts to sound good even to me, and I have to shake myself out of it and help him get dressed. The most heartbreaking thing is that at 3, he is able to describe things vividly.

“Mommy, I don’t want to go to school, because if I go to school, I will be sad. I want to stay here in Mommy and Daddy’s house, in Mommy and Daddy’s bed. I want to stay home, because home is very great.”

You try and take him to Preschool Hell after that.  He definitely will benefit in the long run, and needs the extra structure and stimulation. It’s too tempting to spend the day watching cartoons and begging for popsicles, at least when Daphne is napping and the park or pool is not an option, and we basically want him to play quietly. He doesn’t want to read for hours, or even pretend to be part of a dinosaur herd, like Logan did. He likes to draw and climb and paint, but if someone isn’t next to him every second, he starts either vegging in front of the VCR or embarking on some elaborate, destructive, or dangerous quest, like tearing Play Dough into miniscule particles and scattering them over the house, or climbing to the top of the highest shelf in the bookcase, or peeling all the crayons. Or trying to lie across Daphne in such a way that every inch of her is covered by him, giggling all the while at her protests.

How are we supposed to puzzle all of this out, and still make it to work by 9, and spend the day figuring out how to tell grantees that W’s sanctions are going to force us to freeze their grant funds until we get a license to do charitable work that’s been going on for years? They’ll have to close clinics, and thousands of women will have to go without family planning and support and care. How many will get sick, or have complications, or resort to illegal, unsafe options because W has tied our hands???