Schooled

The temperatures are still in the nineties, but fall is in the air. Maybe it’s that compost pumpkin we have growing out in the backyard. Could be that it’s football season. Or that my wife is back at school and my son has started his new school.

His school. I scoffed at first, thinking they were just dressing it up, calling it an early learning center because it sounds better than “daycare.” You know, like how you call a nursing home "assisted living". I knew what was going on.

But then I came to orientation. Yes orientation. But it really is something. I’m still getting over the whole thumb imprint scanner that checks him in. The little knee high water fountains. The little town setting of the classrooms. There's a library and a chef. This is a little different from the daycare of my youth, where I still remember playtime ending when the woman stubbed out her cigarette. 

Yep, it's definitely pretty sweet, this place, with plenty of smiling faces around. If it’s all a cover to hide a daycare fight club going on in the back, it's a sleek and snazzy operation--I haven’t been able to prove a thing yet. In fact, I have to admit, (and this may sound familiar), that my wife was right about the whole thing. It’s organized and neat and I’ve even hung back and peeked in through the window like a real creeper. 

They offered me a chair.

But so far it looks like this place checks out. Even when I linger around it doesn't seem to bother the teachers. Unfazed, they offered to let me come in for story time. (On further thought, I'm thinking she might have meant that I should actually read the story than sit and listen Billy Madison style).

But things are good with our little guy. It took him a few weeks to get going, but now he’s off and running. At dinner he tells us about his new friends. In the car he sings new songs. He's even getting his left from his right. Letters, numbers, all that stuff. I think were on the cusp of Algebra. He’s turning into an actual little kid right before our eyes.

I guess it’s worth the organs I’ll have to donate to keep him in there. But so far so good.