Cold Spaghetti

When Will and I walked into University Montessori School at 8:15 this morning, he was very excited. He was saying “Play! Play!”, bouncing happily in my arms, thrilled with the memory of our visit last week when he played outside with the other kids. We met the second teacher in his classroom, visited the other kids left earlier as part of the “afterhours” care program (which starts at 7:30) and then went into Will’s classroom with the new teacher to get oriented. Will was very at home, chose a puzzle, brought it to a table, and sat down to play. He was very content and completely ignored me while I talked to the teacher. Finally, I turned to leave — this is when Will finally noticed me. Damn. The crying started, I stayed, and he calmed down. I left again, but just to the office located one room away from Will’s classroom. On my way, I opened the front door for another first-day student, 2 1/2 year old “Nate” (not his real name) and his parents. At the same time, Will ran out of the classroom calling “Mommy!” So, I ushered Will back in the room with Nate, all the while being extra friendly to Nate and introducing him to Will. Nate promptly takes Will’s puzzle away from him, his parents (rather than explain the concept of sharing), turn to me and say, “Nate really doesn’t understanding sharing.” I brush it off with a smile, “that’s okay.” And watch with pride as Will, pleasant as ever, ignores this rudeness and simply begins playing with another puzzle.

When I go to leave, Will begins to cry again. This time, we decide I should just let it go — he’ll be fine in a few minutes. I go to the office and wait to turn in our enrollment forms, listening to Will in the next room cry for me. It’s hard. But, it doesn’t last all that long and is clearly handled well by the staff. As it’s nearing the end, I see Nate’s parents walk past the office door on their way out and hear Nate’s dad say, “Well, that went well, except for that KID who won’t stop CRYING.”

Yah. That’s right. The jerk bad-mouthed my kid. I said nothing (they didn’t see me sitting in the office), mostly because I could only think of two things to say:

1. “Thanks for being such a compassionate parent!”
2. “At least MY kid knows how to SHARE.”

I kept my mouth shut, figuring that saying either one of those things was not a way to start off Will’s first day at school — and our first day in this program we’d really like to stay in.