Skip to main content

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!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

all comments are moderated. unkind comments will be deleted.

you may like...

project life–week 3

nothing too exciting here: and yes, that is a picture of project life! I find myself taking pictures of things I would have found very weird a few months ago, but when you have the ‘daily life’ thing in mind, and stuff your grandchildren might enjoy seeing, it puts a different perspective on things. the latter half of the week: I LOVE wednesday’s picture… layla walking home from the bus. we do this EVERY day, and this is what it looks like now. I’ll have to remember to take one in the spring, and again next fall. I also have one of the pull-out double size journaling cards, which I used to tell the story of layla’s new bedding, which used to be mine. and that’s week 3.
Post a Comment
read more »

vacation–day 2 (tuesday, august 10)

okay, no offense to gramma and papa, but this was THE DAY that we had all been looking MOST forward to. tuesday brought the arrival of the illdaps!!!! it had been SO long since we’d seen them, and even longer since shane and layla had. layla was just beside herself with excitement to get to play with lily again! of course, as soon as they arrived, everyone went straight into the pool! daredevil lily: hannah (banana): shane, air mattress surfing: jacob and micah checking out the little pool – not sure what was so funny… dave chilling and micah ‘driving’: gramma jackie and matthew: I think dave and I squeezed a trip to in-n-out fur lunch that day too! mmmm… double-double w/ grilled onions! later that evening, we took a walk to the park. long-lost cousins, reuinited: gramma helping micah and jacob make it dig: come on, uncle joe, it’s my turn!
Post a Comment
read more »

it just keeps getting better...

so obviously, from my earlier post, the dinner-making portion of my day was a little less than spectacular.  oh, that was just the beginning. dave worked late today. after dinner, i ran a bath for the younger 2 and in the process of getting them from the dining room to the bathroom, micah knocked the container of cheerios off the table and they dumped ALL OVER the floor.  i scooped up what i could and threw it back in the container, then, mindful that the water was still running in the tub and i didn't want to flood the bathroom, i herded the kids into the bathroom and dumped them into the tub. i went back into the dining room and proceeded to sweep up the mound of cheerios that was left on the floor, all the while keeping an ear open for both voices and giggles in the bathroom (as long as you can hear them, their heads are above water, right?).  that took all of about 2 minutes. i looked in on them (both happy as could be) and discovered that both of my younger...
4 comments
read more »

and today i...

...found two cereal containers (tupperware knock-off type) and their lids which have been floating around the garage for a year now. i brought them in and they are currently in the dishwasher so we can actually use them for our endless supply of life and cheerios. 2 more things out of the garage... (or 4 if you want to count the lids!) woo hoo!
Post a Comment
read more »

micah's first word.

are you ready for it? "this" not very profound, i know. but he goes around pointing to stuff going, "this?" and then he'll point to something else and go,"this?" it's pretty cute. (and yes mary, reminiscent of lily. we're working on 'that'.) ... i'm taking shane to the doctor today. he's been having some random bouts of feeling like he's goint to throw up. he never does, but it's usually been at night and i'm getting tired. today's the first day he's felt bad during the day, but he was awake for a couple hours last night and today he said he wanted to go to the doctor and find out what's wrong with him. so we're going. ... i don't know if i ever mentioned that we finally got layla's doctor to refer us to an allergist. YAY! so now we've been in the holding pattern of trying to make an appointment and being unable to because they don't have all the info they need from her doctor...
4 comments
read more »