It's been a long time since I posted a Thursday Thirteen but it seemed justified this week.

Thirteen Things That Have Made Me Regret Taking M to VBS (and most of them are not his fault!):

1.  Snack.  So far this week the kids have had: sugar cookies frosted with vanilla icing and topped with M&Ms and orange wedge candies, chocolate pudding and vanilla wafers, and root beer floats.  Nothing like pumping kids full of sugar and artificial ingredients and expecting them to sit still for the rest of the day.

2.  The student teacher ratio.  The preschool class only had 3 kids on the first day and there were 6 "adults" (3 of which are goofy, giggling 7th grade girls and one 17 year old boy) in the room.  We are now up to 6 kids and 6 "adults" and we are tripping all over each other.  None of the kids know who is in charge and the teenagers keep getting the kids all wound up and in trouble.

3.  The preschool teacher is INCREDIBLY disorganized. She spent the kids' outside time in the grass sewing books for a craft and ignoring the rest of us. She never has anything set up and has been preparing the activities while the rest of us entertain the kids.  But since she is the one in charge (hence, she has the curriculum that we are following) it is making it difficult for the rest of us and the kids to know what is going on, not to mention what to expect next.

4.  The teacher obviously has no idea about working with preschoolers.  Aside from having no plans, she has no transition activities and then gets irritated that the kids (especially M) are all wandering around with nothing to do.

5.  The teacher obviously has no idea about working with preschoolers.  Yes, I wrote that twice.  On the first day, the teacher pulled out a pack of 100 straws (remember there were only 3 kids, M, my niece T, and a little girl named Kyra that day) and when M asked for a red straw, after the teacher handed a red one to cousin T, the teacher snapped at him and said, "You'll get what I give you!".  (Anyone who has ever worked with preschoolers, or who has had preschoolers, or who has been a preschooler themselves, knows that with 3 and 4 year olds everything has to be the same.) 

Then she proceeded to give them all a bowl full of bubble mixture and paint.  Wanna guess what M did?  Took a big ole swallow of the mixture and proceeded to throw it right back up all over himself, my hands, and the floor. (the red fruit punch they had had with snack and the pink paint that the teacher had added made for a lovely shade of pink!) 

 M spent the rest of the day spitting bubbles, while the teacher reminded him that if he hadn't drank them it wouldn't have happened!   What do you expect an almost 4 year old to do with a straw and no explanation of the activity??

6.  The teacher talks about the parents when they are not there.  We got a set of brothers on the second day; Andrew and Graham.  When the teacher introduced them to the group, she called Graham:  Graham Cracker.  The mother, very politely, said that he didn't like to be called that name, so the teacher corrected herself.    Also, when one of the teens made a name tag for Graham (he is 3 BTW) she spelled his name without the H.  When the mother came to pick him up, she pointed out that his name was spelled with an H.  The teacher responded with, "Oh, well that's how he told us it was spelled!", which was a complete lie!

This morning the teacher was telling another person that according to Graham's mom she couldn't do anything right and that she had yelled at her.  WHAT???

7.  The teacher has pegged M as a "bad boy".  She has started disciplining him even when he is doing nothing wrong.  She brought out a bucket of water for a sink/float experiment and even though M was sitting there with his hands in his lap, she turned to him and said, "M, NO SPLASHING!"  Sure lady, let's GIVE him some ideas!

8.  The teacher is nit-picky about stupid stuff.  If a child is sitting quietly on the circle time rug and not bothering anybody, does it really matter if he is sitting criss-cross applesauce or not.  Just be thankful that he is sitting still and quiet and not hitting other kids!

Obviously I was talking about M.  The teacher stops whatever she is doing to make sure that M conforms to what everyone else is doing, even if he is behaving.  Then he freaks out and scampers into my lap crying because he is getting spoken to when he didn't do anything wrong.

9.  M used the bathroom and then locked the door behind himself when he was done.  This one was his fault and I had to find someone with a key to unlock it so that other people could use it.  That wasn't embarrassing at all!

10.  Speaking of the bathroom, this teacher never wants to deal with potty breaks.  They are 3 and 4!  M and T had to use the bathroom twice in one day and I thought the teacher's eyes were going to roll out of her head!

11.  M is obviously too "out of the box" for this teacher.  Since the teenagers did the entire craft FOR  all of the other kids, and I just let M glue his stuff on how he wanted, she had a silent hissy fit and tried to rearrange his work.  I took it from her and said that he would finish it on his own however he liked.  I also had to give him back his glue because the teacher decided that he had used too much and couldn't have anymore.  He's a maverick, that one!

12.  The teacher has unrealistic ideas.  For some reason, the teacher and her teen daughter showed up for VBS on Wednesday with a life size bear named Sampson.  Of course the group is going to want to touch him!  Most of the kids were able to touch him, but when M did he was too "rough". (because Sampson had been given to the teacher by her husband before they got married so he was really old)  Poor M was the only kid that was not allowed to touch Sampson, so I finally picked him up and put on a high shelf.

13.  The teacher doesn't seem to understand that the more she gets in M's face, the more he is going to freak out.  Now, I know that some people find it rude when children don't answer adults.  I, however, find it rude when adults think they can touch my kid even when he doesn't want them to and get right up in his face because he won't respond to them.  But that's just me, I guess.

I really thought that this experience would be good for M and it is turning out to be a nightmare.  I have been pretty good about holding my tongue with this woman, and I am not sure how much more I can take.  M is tough to handle sometimes, but he is not always at fault for everything! 

I am so glad he doesn't go to school and have to deal with people like this on a regular basis!