I am going back to school....

I started back at school, I am doing a total do over! I am starting at preschool!
When my hours were cut at my job I needed something to fill just one day a week during school hours. This seemed like an impossible task! Where was I going to find such a job. In walks my "village" most of whom work at the preschool the kids went and will go to. The need an assistant in the monday class! A one day of the week gig, things just have a way of working out!
I LOVE this school, it has always had a special place in my heart. The teachers and the director were not teachers there when Tim first started school but parents of classmate, who became teachers there as other teachers moved along. They brought a new life to the school and it has been fun to watch the program grow evolve.

Going back to preschool has also given me some perspective. The philosophy at the school is to foster independence of these tiny little people. I am helping in Mrs H's class on Mondays when she has 3 and 4 year olds together. There are 14 little people. They sit in cirlce time, they do a craft project to varying degrees of success. They have snack and even pour their own drinks! (this has always been an adventure). We expect a lot of of them, to say please and thank you to acknowledge when we have hurt someone and say your sorry. We don't expect that they are all going to be best friends but we do expect them to polite and courteous to each other. We do have such high expectations of them, I was thinking about this yesterday out loud with another friend, how can we are parents, teachers (not just in the classroom sense) and role models expect our littlest kids, not just at the school but our kids at home to do this when at best as adults we have the hardest time following the rules we have set forth for them.

Be Kind

Say your sorry

Keep your hands to yourself

Take turns

Don't hurt our friends feelings

Put things away

Clean up after yourself

The golden rule and all those great cliches.... that we repeat time and time again to our kids....

Instead we seem to implore the opposite, do as I say not as I do...

Sometimes life lessons are best learned when we take a step back and start over, I think everyone could use a day at preschool now and again to remember, LIFE IS about the small stuff, not a career or new car, but about being a good citizen, saying please and thank you and playing nice in the sandbox of life.