Things I learned at Preschool

Today I spent the morning at Paolo’s school and I learned a lot. I didn’t learn ABCs or 123s. Here are a few of the things I learned:

• Sitting on a tiny chair isn’t so bad when you have 6 very interested faces hanging on your every word and movement.
• Playing on the playground is for the young AND the young at heart. I had a blast running up the ladders, sliding down the slides, hiding in and behind the playhouse, playing hide and seek, crawling around in the woodchips while hiding from the “Andy Monster,” and just plain running. It was honestly, plain good fun.
• I can walk from the playground to the door with up to eight children holding my hands, thumbs, and elbows. We waddled like a octupus out of water.
• I really do like playing cars and dinsaurs.
• Five children can and will sit on my lap/small pieces of my legs during after lunch storytime.
• Knock-knock jokes aren’t only terribly hilarious at our house, they’re hilarious for everyone under 4 feet. And they make about as much sense as the ones Paolo makes up at home:

“knock knock

who’s there?

baseball.

baseball who?

baseball, don’t you want to play baseball with me?!”

followed by lots of laughs.

• Preschool children aren’t shy. There wasn’t a single shy one in the bunch. Not one. One girl immediately sat in my lap and rarely left my side in the four hours I was there. Other children asked me to take them to the bathroom, clean up spilt yogurt, hold their hands, pick them up when they were crying and rub their backs when they went down for a nap.
• I still need an afternoon nap. I went home and slept for TWO hours.
• Paolo’s teachers are SAINTS.
• The most important thing I learned at Preschool today is that Paolo and his friends are wonders . It made my heart sing to see this group of confident, imaginative, creative, loved children. It gave me hope for the future. Corny, yes. But true.