Farewell, Happy Fields...

I forget exactly where we left off so I’ll try to do a quick summary: Last month, Donovan was supposed to start school at Pittsburgh Montessori. I, of course, was stricken with grief that he would be leaving Waldorf Fairyland behind. At the end of his first day of Montessori, we were told he was’nt potty trained enough and that we had until September 30 to get him up to speed or we would loose his place. That is significant as Pittsburgh Montessori is a magnet school and we were lucky that we got thru the lottery to place him there.

We were also lucky in that Waldorf was kind enough to take Donny back into the Little Friends program until things got sorted out. A funny thing happened tho—in the 72 or so hours between Donny’s last day of Waldorf and his starting up there again, he got too big for Little Friends. Suddenly he was the oldest kid in the group and all his running buddies were in the Nursery School program. So I started up with the angst again, but it was a different brand of angst.

Fast forward: I told Donovan’s speech therapist that he would be back at Waldorf due to potty training issues, she mentioned this in passing to her boss and suddenly Donovan is invited back to Montessori and they are buying equipment and (this is the crazy part) rewriting job descriptions because it turns out it is illegal, or at least against school board policy, for public schools to “discriminate on the basis of potty training.” So Donovan’s last day at Waldorf is TOMORROW.

TOMORROW.

Oh, sweet Jesus. Here I go with the angst again…

Le Sigh

What is it about 3 year olds? I suppose I should just contain that question to my particular 3 year old. He’s so little but so big—its like I can’t get my Personal Viewpoint lens to focus on him. Two Fridays ago he had his first day at Montessori and the whole week leading up to it I was a mess. He’s too young! He’s too little! He can’t be cooped up inside all day, he’s just a baby! Its too soon for him to be in a real school! At the end of that first day, we were told he was’nt potty trained enough and we had until September 30 to get him on track or he would loose his place in the school. We put him back at Waldorf in the program he had been in. We drop him off there and my heart breaks: He’s so big! All the other kids are tiny! All his friends graduated up to Nursery School! What’s he supposed to do outside all day with all these babies? He’s not going to progress!

Sigh.

And, really, that’s been the theme of the past two weeks: is he a big boy or a little boy? I’m at a complete loss to figure that one out.

While I have a nasty feeling the potty training deadline will come too soon for us, we are still giving it the old college try. Please say some Novenas to St. Jude. Which reminds me—as far as I can tell, there is no patron saint for potty training. Considering the manner of martyrdom often determines the assignment of various saints to various causes, I guess is good news