Preschool

Our preschool has a set of rules that are the foundation of conduct in the classroom. They are all simple and direct, and one of the reasons I am starting to like this place.

My favorite? “You can only knock down what you build.”

This rule is pretty specifically geared towards the block area, of course, but I like its wider connotations. You can only tear down those things to which you have contributed, you can only take what you have given.

There is something beautiful and poetic and sweet about that sentiment.

I find as a whole that the co-op preschool we have joined is not nearly so fearsome a prospect as I imagined. I mean, yeah, of course. I’ve never really been able to adopt the maxim “Don’t worry - if that about which you worry comes to pass, you will have worried twice, and if it does not, you will have worried in vain.”

What became clear quite quickly is that this will be a fun experience for me, because I really like the kids. I was worried about my interactions with the parents, but that isn’t why I am there when I am there. It’s about the kids, and I like kids, actually play with and talk to, never at or down to, kids.

And I can even say this after being called in the very first time I was listed as the sub, at the end of the very first week.

I’m trying not to develop favorites or prejudices, but they are there.

The little Danish-Asian boy I call Chah Li after a character in a long ago favorite novel about Vietnam, who never speaks but understands and communicates incredibly well with his body and face, and likes to play catch with me.

Or little Pinhead, a sweet and doomed little girl that was the first one to ask me to take her to the potty, and told me I was nice at the flax seed table.

Or ACAC, the Alpha Cool Asian Chick, that everyone loves and yet clearly harbors a malevolent streak, and told me flat out that I wasn’t funny while she was laughing at me.

Or The Game, named unfortunately after a famous sci-fi character and apparently completely unaware of the concept of discipline, with whom I can already see the conflicts and the possibility, which I won’t be able to shake, of breaking through and making a connection.

There is the buoyant Swiss Miss, and crazy blonde Eraserhead that loves him some Jim, and Heartthrob already wooing all the girls and waiting to be pie-eyed for a decent piper.

It is already easy to ignore pSAM (the pSeudo-Alpha Mom) that tried three times to take over my table and tell the kids what to do, or OldLoon, the grey-headed uber-Lib that snapped at me when I asked her mean little prick of a boy to put on a coat for outdoor playtime in the rain (apparently, I was limiting his creative expression by suggesting that a t-shirt and leggings would be a bit cold). They don’t matter, the kids matter, just as their opinions of my parenting don’t matter, only Liv does.

But, since I’m sounding all fucking noble here, I have to admit something. Because, really, I don’t want to mislead anybody into believing I’m a twink. I am, as one friend nailed perfectly, a son-of-a-bitch. And part of me, when I’m playing with kids, treating them like people, always dropping to their eye level, being charming at the same time as being authoritative, which kids just naturally respond to, dropping their attitude like a barista will drop her panties when confronted with the same confidence, part of me just wants to be better in that room, with those kids, than any of the parents I’ve already tagged with self-righteous worldviews.

Nice guy. Good with kids. Sick fuck. Jim Jewell.

Why don’t they make a pill for me?