School, school, don't be late!

If you know the rest of this rhyme, then you either teach or you were a master at jump-roping at some point in your life.

School is right around the corner for all three of us Rupperts. I will be going back to teach my eleventh year of kindergarten, and Paul, his eleventh year of middle school. Joy will be beginning her first year of school. I guess you can call it school. It is technically daycare, but in November she will move into the two-year old class at the same school.

The school is called "Olivenhain Country Preschool for the Arts and Infant Center". It is quite a name for actually a very small, friendly and what I call, very "granola" type of preschool. The day we went to visit back in May, the children were eating spaghetti with red sauce and had their shirts off. They were covered in sauce and walking their paper plates to the trash. I could tell right there that the school encourages independence and that they also don't care about messes. Good things to look for in a preschool.

Anyway, we have made a few visits this week to begin our transition. We have had a some good moments and some tears. I guess that is to be expected. The biggest tears have come not from Joy, but from me. Please don't get me wrong, I know that every thing will be just fine. But right about now, I want to take Joy (and Paul and Isabella) and run to the cheapest place on earth (where is that?) just so I can stay home with her.

I love teaching. I just wish I could magically put my rooom on ice for three years while my baby grows into a little girl. And, at that point she could join us at Rhoades and my fantasy of teaching at her school would come true. We are entitled to our dreams, right?