Problem Child

I never thought MY kid would be the bad boy of the class, but today I took Adlani to orientation at his new preschool. I watched proudly as he sorted through the bin of plastic people, looking for one that would fit into the green jeep. I read him a story and internally praised his cognitive skills when he noticed that I skipped some pages. I watched with pride as he looked at a piece of coral through a magnifying glass and then told the teacher that it was like a tunnel that a train would go through. What an imagination! I was thrilled at his maturity when I left the classroom to go see the nurse, and he didn't cling and cry like a couple of the other kids. He even went peepee on the potty...my kid is truly a model 3-year-old. Cute too.

Then...Circle Time. He wouldn't sit with the other kids...every one of whom was sitting quietly and listening to the teacher. He insisted on looking at books while the rest of the class was doing the bean bag dance (to a record - can you believe it?). He laid down on the floor while he was supposed to be touching the bean bag to various body parts. He said, "I want to get out of here," loud enough for Room 211 to hear. He crawled under the loft and went to the play kitchen to make breakfast. He was unresponsive to my whispered threats, even though I used my mad voice AND my grumpy face. And when it was time to do the question of the day where each child had to find their name and place it under the "yes" column or the "no" column, poor Adlani was the one member of his class who insisted that "no" - he had never been to the beach. When it was time for the whole class to go down to the potty, he screamed that he didn't need to go and went boneless in the hallway. When I enticed him to the general area of the potty by pointing out that the water fountain was also there, he momentarily joined the line, and when it was time for the class to return to the classroom, he was overjoyed that he was the fastest runner and the first to make it back. I'm just hoping he's not expelled the first week.