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warning! vent in progress!

i am feeling the need to vent a bit. today was THE MOST ridiculous excuse for a day of preschool i've ever experienced. thursdays are my work day at layla's school, so i had to participate, even help facilitate, this mess.

today was picture day.

now i understand picture day. don't get me wrong. i made a little bit of an effort to make sure that layla's clothes at least matched and that her hair looked decent. but it's 'school pictures'. a head shot against a blueish-grayish background, right? boy was i wrong.

so, because everyone was in their 'fancy clothes' for picture day, the kids couldn't do anything messy or go outside. okay, we've completed barely a month of school with 18 barely 3 year olds and this is a good idea? not only that, this photographer lady (whose gimmick to get the kids to smile was to sing elmo's world to them) had each kid in like 3 different poses and took about 10 minutes. but wait it gets better. the kids were not brought into the room when it was their turn to get their picture taken, they went in in groups of 3 or 4! and there were no toys or anything in this room, just camera equipment, tables and chairs and a bunch of stuff the weren't supposed to mess with. for like half an hour! so after 2 hours of being cooped up inside, finally being 'entertained' by the teacher trying to maintain some sort of control by doing songs and fingerplays in the circle room (where they were hopping around like rabid fleas on crack), they finally finish everyone's individual shots and decide that they need to take a class picture at this point. A CLASS PICTURE! so they discuss where to do this and decide they're going to do it in a classroom, with kids posing around the teacher who is sitting in front of this climbing apparatus that's made out of the cushy vinyl stuff like tumbling equipment. a thing they are regularly encouraged to climb, jump, slide, roll around on, etc. and they start posing these kids on it 5 minutes before the photographer is even in the room. kids were pushing, jumping, crawling through the tunnel, fighting over the top space, throwing pillows, hitting other kids with pillows, running away, switching positions, etc, etc. i don't even think they had any idea why they were there! not that they would have cared. they're 3 and they've been cooped up for almost 2 and a half hours at this point. and for some reason, i seemed to be the only one who thought this situation was at all ludicrous or even slightly inappropriate. well, it was going to happen, and i'm surprised it didn't happen to anyone else, but layla got whacked in the face right as the photographer finally showed up and sang her stupid elmo's world song. so she's crying hysterically. i asked once if she could smile for the lady to take her picture and she wasn't interested so i picked her up, sobbing, and took her out of the insanity. she won't be in the picture and honestly i could care less. even if she had been in it and was smiling, i would know how stupid the whole thing was that led up to that moment.

that was NOT something i want to have to remember.

i can't believe i paid tuition for her to be there today. what a ridiculous and inappropriate situation. when i want fancy pictures taken of my kid, i make an appointment to do so. i don't pay my preschool tuition so that my kid can wait around for 17 other kids to get their fancy pictures taken. that should be done on their own time.

grrr...

Comments

  1. LindseyOctober 17, 2008 at 11:38 AM

    Ugh...I'm sorry Rachel! What a horrible experience! Next year you'll know to be "sick" on that day!!! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. BrendaOctober 17, 2008 at 6:09 PM

    You just described picture day at the MONTESSORI school I used to teach at in Germany. Apparently this was the only available option for fancy pictures in Germany, or something. After volunteering the first year for Joey's pictures, I was prepared for when I was teaching. I urged parents to send the fancy clothes along seperately and that we would have them change right before their turn, and change back right after. One year, one of "my" kids put a temp tattoo in the middle of his forehead, 5 minutes before pictures. I had to race home for the baby oil!

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