Shop Til You Drop

Husband and I have been shopping around for pre pre-schools for our oldest to attend.  She'll just be going half days, but we want her to get some fun socialization going before the real learnin' starts in Kindy-garten.  As we've been going around, Baby A rates the schools based on their kitchens.  You know what I mean: lil play kitchens, with pots and pans, food, etc.  I was ALL about these when I was wee, too, so it's funny to hear her say, "Mummy, I want to go back to the school with TWO kitchens.  It had a DORA ONE!"  (Yes, one school not only had two kitchens in one room, but that same room also contained a Dora kitchen.  The kid's got her standards, too.)

This has all been reminding me of my first days in pre-school.  It was called Mother's Morning Out and was held at the church I would soon attend with my bro and mom.  I STILL vividly remember one of my first lessons at the pre-school: DON'T YELL.  We were playing restaurant, which I thought was awesome.  I quickly started to draw upon my own knowledge of restaurants, which pretty much just came from re-runs of Alice.  Now, I don't remember much about Alice, but back then I remembered enough to yell the orders back at the "chef" in the "kitchen."  Let's keep in mind that I wasn't too happy to be assigned the waitress role: I wanted in that kitchen.  After I took the order of the customer, I yelled it back over my shoulder to the chef.  I was quickly reprimanded by the teacher that I should walk the order back to the kitchen, for yelling was impolite.  My quick reply was, "That's not how I see it in restaurants and on TV."  That may have been one of the only times I ever talked back to the teacher.  She probably quickly labeled me as one of those kids that have been at home their whole life, cared for by loving parents and grandparents instead of being put into an in-home daycare and taught real respect. 

And, that is my childhood anecdote of the day, sponsored by First Presbyterian Church's MMO of 1984.