Why is it harder to get into preschool than college?

I've heard people talk about getting into the right preschool to get into the right private school to get into the right college. I always thought they were nuts; it's preschool where they learn their ABCs, how to stand in line and how to share. Imagine my surprise when I found myself channeling Diane Keaton from Baby Boom learning that I was well behind in the race to install my son in preschool.

I have one child, so while he's two, I'm still a first time mom of a two-year-old. This means I often learn as many new words and new things a week as he does; for example, PMO (parent's morning out) and old-two (a kid with a birthday after August 31 who will be one of the oldest in his class).When it came time to start the preschool application process I was amazed to learn that it begins almost a year before school starts! That's right, you have to tour schools in January, apply in February and pay in May for school that starts in September.

My preschool-induced ulcer began in December when I started flipping through the mother's club preschool directory. Would he be better off in a two-day or three-day program? Should it be a church-based or secular school? Was it play-based or teacher-directed? Did I want a school that required a lot of parent participation? (No on that one, after all, the point of this is for him to be AWAY from me for nine hours a week, not play with me in a new environment.) After about thirty minutes of fevered highlighting and note-taking, my eyes began to roll back in my head and I had to put the book aside. I stuffed it far into my nightstand drawer and tried to forget that time continues to move forward and I would eventually have to deal with this.

In January I started calling schools about touring and applying. I was bummed, but not surprised, to hear that most schools didn't allow kids to accompany their parents on school tours, all of which take place during the day.Since we are going through major separation anxiety, and my husband can't just drop everything to watch him, leaving my little guy behind wasn't an option, so I put off the tours. The application process itself was a pretty mind-boggling experience. One school had an in person application lottery from 10am to 11am on a Wednesday and if you were accepted you had to immediately pay $85 and leave a kidney on loan (okay not really, but more on the fees and requirements later). Others had mail in lotteries, accepted applications starting at a certain time on a certain day and actually wrote the time on them as they came in, or started taking applications in October. Yeah, right, I could handle this...

At the beginning of February I began to panic in earnest.I knew several schools were already out of our reach, so I decided to concentrate on one. We actually got in for a tour (they allowed kids) and felt confident we would make the cut. I only applied to one college and that worked out okay, so I had no reason to think this process would be different. We sent off the applications and fees and hoped for the best. The thing you learn about preschools is they come with insane fees. Each school charges an application fee, some charge to be on the waiting list, then once you get in there are registration fees, supply fees, lunch bunch fees (yep, another new word) and don't forget tuition. We were fifth in line to drop off the application, so I felt pretty good about our chances.

Today was the day. The school was notifying applicants via mail, so the butterflies started when we arrived home after a morning out and I noticed that the flag was down on the mailbox. When I saw the thin envelope in the box my heart sank. Was preschool like college, where thin means bad? With shaking hands and closed eyes I opened the envelope. I finally got up the courage to open my eyes and there, in black and white, it said  "wait list." That's right, we got wait listed for preschool.

I cried and threw a little grown-up tantrum, I couldn't believe it - I seriously did not put this much effort into applying for college! Once I composed myself, I got to work calling all the other schools on our list trying to get our son on their wait lists. Who knows what is going to happen come fall. Hopefully we'll find a spot in a school that fits us, because honestly my son and I both need a break from each other. But if we don't, you'd better believe that I will start this process again in October, so by the time the 2012-2013 school year rolls around we will be ahead of the pack instead of crawling frantically along behind it.

Have you heard the one about the toddler, the dishtowel and the hardwood floor?

No, it's not a bad joke, it's the unbelievable scenario that played itself out at our house today. Once again my son proved that you can injure yourself with the most innocuous items. I'm a tad concerned that child protective services is going to flag us because our son consistently looks like he came out on the losing end of a prize fight.

Back to the dish towel incident...I was making lunch and the kid was playing in the kitchen, none too happy that my attention was elsewhere. He yanked the dishtowels off the oven door and was swirling them around. I thought nothing of it, he was having fun, it was harmless and they needed to be washed anyway. As I turned back to the sandwich I was making, musing about how kids can have fun with anything, I heard an earsplitting scream of pain. I turned around to see blood dripping from his mouth.

How do these things happen when you are standing right there?! I really don't know what he did, I suppose he probably tripped over the dishtowel, fell and bit his lip. He was pretty freaked and it takes a lot to spook this kid. Of course my husband was upstairs on a conference call as I frantically tried to stop the bleeding, calm the child and confirm that nothing else had happened (all while worrying that the person on the other end would think we were running a two-year-old torture chamber).

Seriously, I don't get it, the kid was going headfirst, on his back down the slide all morning and nothing, he picks up a dishtowel and boom, a fat lip. He refuses to use an icepack, so I grabbed the next best thing, an icee. I figured it's frozen and it will stay on his lip, so...

Needless to say, I'm cautiously optimistic that we have filled our random injury quota for the day. Prior to this he had his fingers smashed in the door, so I feel like two tear-inducing injuries a day are quite enough. Right now he's happy as a lark, playing outside, trying to talk around his freshly swollen lip and enjoying another popsicle. I guess in his world, this whole thing turned out all right in the end.

Does anyone else cringe their way through the Oscars?

Okay, it's that time of year again, when Hollywood decides to reward itself with a three (usually four) hour extravaganza of kudos and gushing. I'm so out of touch that I had to ask someone if the show was on last night, even with the always insane amount of advertising associated with the show. So I turned it on, caught the last part of the opening montage with the hosts and then promptly muted the TV after only one cringe (an all time record).

For those without the pleasure of serving time in the gilded cage that is the entertainment industry, the shows are just another opportunity to see movie stars in evening wear.The "Academy" is a group of industry members who have been "invited" to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Typically these people have made significant contributions to the "art," or have been nominated for an Oscar. Studios have special screenings for Academy members, send out dvds/scripts/cds to promote their films and advertise like there is no tomorrow in industry periodicals. Basically, the Oscars are the equivalent of running for class president, where more often than not, the most popular kid (and often the one with the most money) wins.


Why am I so cynical about this love fest? Well, I guess because I worked in the industry for a while. Now don't get me wrong, the closest I ever got to the Academy Awards was trying to find my way around the city each February when they blocked off the streets. However, participating in the process, regardless of how ancillary my position was, gave me a healthy dose of reality. Everything is a competition, a desire to be the best of the best, but at the end of the day, awards like the Oscars are at their heart, a popularity contest. Watching Oscar winners hoist their heavy gold statues (and they are heavy) in the air just doesn't ring true the way it did when I was a starry-eyed entrant into that world.

Maybe it's because I have a kid now, and I worry about what losing at the ever increasing competitive life may do to him. I'm sure he will be successful at many things, but I harbor no illusions that he will be the best at everything he tries. I've seen tons of articles explaining why losing is not a bad thing for kids, how it helps them grow and develop. Sure, that makes sense, but what parent wants to see their child crushed because they didn't win this or that award/game/contest. Are we too competitive?

Mothers are the world's worst when it comes to competition. We want our kids to be the brightest and the best from the moment of conception, comparing ultrasound pictures and measurements of tiny arms and legs. The competition continues with the constant barrage of "when did he walk/talk/sing/dance/solve the mystery of who murdered JFK." It is never-ending and absolutely second nature. A simple trip to the park can be as exhausting as an Olympic competition, with Mommy-coach listing every accomplishment of her offspring.

What does this have to do with the Oscars? I guess it just struck a chord in me this year because my son is starting to venture out into the world, and I don't want him to think being popular is more important than the way he acts or who he is. The Oscars are not a quantifiable race, the playing field is by no means level and yet it is considered to be the highest achievement in the industry. When I was younger, my dream was to win an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony. (Obviously I had no problem dreaming big!) Much like Sally Field, I wanted to be able to say "You like me. You really, really like me." That quote has followed her for years, but truly, that is what winning an Oscar is all about, it shows that the "Academy" likes you, at least for that year anyway.

Approval is so important to us. I'm not sure if it is a specifically American desire, but I do know we tend to be the best at giving out popularity awards. I'm physically incapable of watching the acceptance speeches at the Oscars without covering my ears and squealing through the inevitable embarrassing parts. Listening to the recipients gush about how amazing it is to win the award just makes me cringe, not because they don't deserve to be honored for their work, but because they need the approval of others to validate it.

We encourage our child every day, cheering at small successes like saying "please and thank you" or putting away his toys. Encouragement is a healthy part of life, as is competition. I want him to grow up with a positive sense of self and not need the adulation of others to be fulfilled. My hope for him is that he will find his true worth in his accomplishments, relationships with others and positive spirit, not in the praise he gets from his peers. But don't get me wrong, if he's ever nominated for an Oscar or an Emmy or a Tony, you better believe I'll be front row center, cheering him on, and I won't even cover my ears once.

What are the odds?

We are not a lucky family. I don't mean to say that we are unlucky, but if there is a contest where we are the only entries, it is very likely that we will lose. Even though we don't win any contests, I feel pretty lucky for each day that we escape some sort of major injury from our extremely fearless child. My father is convinced there is an entire legion of guardian angels assigned to our son, and they are almost entirely responsible for his lack of broken bones and ultimately his continued existence.

Today was a beautiful, unseasonably warm, February day. We spent a lot of time outside and got the chance to play in the backyard. We have a fenced backyard, so I can let our little guy play outside even if I have to be inside doing something boring and grown-up, like making dinner. (Don't freak, there is an entire wall of windows and I can see him from the kitchen, so really, I'm not a negligent mother, I promise.)

After my husband finished work, he headed out to enjoy the pretty day with the kid. They were out there for about 15 minutes when all of the sudden I heard real crying (not the "I want attention" kind) and in they came. When I asked what had happened, my husband held up one of those golf-ball sized prickly things that fall off the trees this time of year. (After some research I learned these are sweet gum seed pods.) We don't have one of those trees, and I had already removed what I thought was the only intruder from the yard earlier in the day. Apparently, our son managed to fall flat on his face directly on the ONLY one of these pesky things remaining in the entire backyard.

Lady Luck has a rather perverse sense of humor when it comes to us. Once again, we proved that the one in a million distinction is not always a good thing. Now don't misunderstand, I realize falling on a sweet gum seed pod is not in any way a travesty, it's just indicative of our lack of luck. I'm so assured of my own bad luck at this point, that on the rare occasion we decide to buy a lottery ticket, I make my husband purchase them because I'm certain that my bad luck will jinx us.

So tonight I'm sitting here beside a sweet little blond boy with a very large band-aid on his forehead. As I look at him, trying to figure out how to get the weird thing off his head, I can't help but think maybe I am lucky and just don't realize it. After all, I've got a great kid who, while often infuriating, is unbelievably sweet. I don't think it gets any luckier than that.

Does the hair make the (little) man?

Before the cut...

I do not have a good track record when it comes to hair. As a child, I went one afternoon with my mom to the hairdresser to get my stick-straight hair cut and left looking like Little Orphan Annie. My teacher actually asked me if I was a new student when I came to school the next day. That traumatic experience has followed me into adulthood, making me a very gun-shy haircutee.

I dread haircuts the way other people dread the dentist. I have very little style and seem to be unable to communicate appropriately to the stylist what I want. I have thin, fine, straight hair and a very round face. If you cut it wrong, I look like a stray dog with a pie-face. This is not the fashion statement I aspire toward, and generally I just beg them to take a little off the ends and leave the rest of my hair alone.

My husband knows this about me, he has seen the results of a bad haircut and seems to fully support my "just a trim" mantra. Knowing my inability to communicate properly to anyone who wields scissors for a living, you would think he would protect our son and never allow me to take him to the salon alone. Sadly, my husband seems to have similar difficulty communicating to hairdressers and has left the salon looking like a mushroom once or twice. Once we find someone who can cut his hair properly we tend to revere this individual as at the very least, a minor god.

Needless to say, our son is somewhat out of luck when it comes to getting a haircut, and since I dread it so much, I usually wait until he looks like a Beatle wannabe before I cave and take him to the kids salon. He's two, and has only had three haircuts in his life! A week or so ago, his scraggly hair finally got to me and I had to take him in. I wanted Joe to go with me for moral support (and to help hold the child, hey he's two, sitting still is a major challenge!) but he had to work so I went this one alone.

We met Heather, and right away I started flubbing my way through an explanation of what I wanted. I was trying to say, "please clean it up a bit but keep it long." Instead, I stumbled around until she said, "Do you just want a little boy haircut?" I thankfully said yes and set about trying to keep him occupied with a Cars dvd and lollipops while she went to work.

As time passed, I started to get alarmed. I'd thought he looked like a little boy when he came in, which would mean that a snip here and a snip there would send him out looking like a better coiffed little boy. No such luck. At least an inch of hair later, my little moppet looked like a five-year-old ready for kindergarten. It was a really great haircut actually, even and well-shaped. But to me, my child looked like a shorn sheep. As I plunked down $25 I held back tears.

Once in the car, I immediately placed a call to Joe and yelled at him for letting me go alone as I tried to not hyperventilate. I considered going back in, retrieving my son's hair, and trying to glue it back on! After hanging up with Joe, I called my mother to wail. She tried to reason with me and mentioned how fast my son's hair grows. I wailed even louder and told her we would have to talk later. So we finished our errands and headed home, me hanging my head in shame as we walked in the door, certain Joe would agree and think me a horrible mother for allowing our child to get such a cut.

The thing is, Joe actually liked the cut. He thought it would grow in well and not look so shaggy. Surprisingly, my parents liked the cut as well. Apparently I'm the only one who didn't like it. But couldn't they see that those sweet little curls at the back of his neck were gone and I wouldn't be able to wrap them around my fingers when he's sitting on my lap? They talked about how clean his style was, but all I noticed was that there was so little hair to ruffle on his head as he stood beside me in line at Target. I was shocked at their reactions.

It seemed that the problem wasn't really the haircut, it was the shock I got when I saw what he will look like when he's a "big boy." And I realized that it won't be all that long until he is that big boy, and my sweet little toddler who just learned the word "mouth" will be only a memory. I know that my reaction to the haircut was out of proportion, but doesn't everyone else see how fast this kid is growing? He's already so different than he was just a few months ago, and every change we make pushes him further into the future and farther away from being my baby.

...after the cut

Ultimately, I am still waiting expectantly for his hair to grow out and those curls to come back. I'm not ready for him to be any older than two years and three months, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure he stays little as long as possible. But as for whether or not its a good haircut, well I guess I will just let you decide.

Have you seen it all?

Life amuses me on a regular basis. I remember one day, driving to the grocery store, I saw five Canadian geese standing in a perfectly diagonal line blocking a lane of travel like living traffic cones. I like experiences like this, they remind me that life is full of surprises and things aren't always what they seem.

Today I had the chance to be surprised once again.My husband and I had a rare child-free weekend, had just picked my son up from my parents and were headed home. As we were driving along, we came across this Roman chariot driving down I-40. Driving up behind this, ahem, contraption, we were rather baffled, was it a trike, some sort of farm vehicle, a carnival ride? After we passed it, we came to the conclusion that it was a little of all three. What you can't see is there is a small stuffed jockey riding on the back of the horse.

Now it takes all kind of people to make this world an interesting place, but I have to admit that I've had a hard time trying to figure out the type of person that spends the money to turn a trike into a chariot that is road-worthy. Adding to my confusion is the fact that the driver seemed annoyed that I was taking a picture of his vehicle. (By the way, I wasn't the only one, I saw at least two other people snapping pics as they passed by.) I suppose perhaps he felt it was an invasion of his privacy, but didn't the act of driving on the road in a vehicle that looks like a ride from the state fair negate his inherent right to be left alone? I took care not to get his face, but seriously, you don't drive something like this without expecting to be noticed.

It made me think about other forms of exhibitionist behavior. I personally have no problem with it, and often don't notice things that are different about people. I think you should have the right to express yourself as you see fit (without hurting other people of course) but I think it is unrealistic to expect that others are not going to stare, comment or in this case, photograph, the differences.

At the end of the day, I don't understand it, but I kind of like it. How cool is it to be able to ride in a Roman chariot on a North Carolina highway in 2011. Life is short, do what you want. Just do me a favor, if you plan to be out on the road in a vehicle that resembles anything fun, like a hot dog, domesticated animal or other such interesting thing, please let me know. I need more random sightings in my life, it keeps me from taking things too seriously.

Is this for me or my kid?

Today I took my son to see Elmo.(Yes, this is how we spend our weekends now...) One of the local toy stores decided to put on an Elmo "show" to drum up business, and being the mom that I am, I of course immediately jumped on the band wagon. I knew it might be crazy busy, I hoped it wouldn't be scary and I prayed we wouldn't have a major meltdown.

Once we found the location of the event, I scouted out the goodies for purchase. A mylar Elmo balloon that retails for a whopping $1 at our local dollar store was selling for $5. You could combine the balloon with a small (read four inches tall) plush Sesame Street character for $10.99, or purchase the character only for $8. A photo with Elmo was the least expensive option at $7, and you could get all three for $20. I know this litany of prices is rather boring, but I mention them to make a point. These were designed to make the parents feel like they NEEDED to get their kids these things, like mouse ears at Disney World, a kid without an Elmo balloon was clearly going to be deprived. At first I thought, twenty bucks, okay no big deal, but when I equated that amount to the article I would have to write to pay for it I quickly changed my mind.

The free portion of the event was very brief, maybe 15 minutes or so. Elmo came out, danced around and "whispered" into the ear of the emcee (since obviously this was not the "real" Elmo and the kids would notice the voice straight off) for a few silly minutes. My son seemed to enjoy himself, he sang and danced around, and I felt confident in not purchasing all the ancillary items as he didn't seem to care about the balloons or the stuffed animals.

In the end, I did opt to pay the $7 so we could get a picture with Elmo. I figured it was cute and while overpriced, I knew I'd be disappointed later if I hadn't gotten one. This experience, much like visiting Santa Claus, was supposed to be for my son. But as I said, I would have been disappointed if he hadn't seen Elmo. After all, the kid is two, I don't think he would have been scared for life if I hadn't made him wait in line to get a picture taken with an oversized red furry monster.

The whole experience really made me think about the things I do with my son and whether they are for him or for me. He's seen Santa twice, screamed his way through a visit with the Easter Bunny and posed with the Chick-Fil-a cow. I can't help but wonder what he gets out of these interactions (except the cow - I know he loves that one). Am I pushing these things too early because I want to be able to paste the pictures into his scrapbook, or am I giving him a fun experience that may actually have some impact on his emotional development.

I know as a parent my job is to expose my child to new things and encourage him to explore and enjoy the world around him. I'm just not sure if I'm getting it right. Am I helping him grow or am I teaching him that for life to be fun we must constantly be on the go, moving from one event to the next? I don't think there is necessarily a right or wrong answer, but I do know that he danced and sang and he and I both grinned a lot this morning as a random grown-up danced around in a red furry suit. I have to think that the giggles and grins alone count for something...