THE DEFECTOR

I hope Aleita has a good day at preschool today. Last week, she tried to lead a revolt. She moved to a new room - - the “Penguins” room - - a few weeks ago. Prior to that, she had been in the “Bears” room for about a year. So far, the transition to a new environment had gone pretty well. She had had a few rocky moments, but overall, things were no better or worse than they had been for her in her previous classroom.

Apparently on Friday though, Aleita reached an impasse with one of her teachers in the Penguins room. With much fanfare, she announced that she was leaving and going back to the Bears room. She removed her plastic cubby that contains her extra clothes and sunscreen, grabbed her pillow and blanket from her cot, and removed her name from door of the classroom.

In an effort to completely overthrow the Penguin room, she attempted to organize a faction united around her cause. As she dragged her things down the hallway to her old room, she yelled, “Follow me boys!” to her friends in the Penguin room. The teachers reported that the other students were all too stunned and afraid of reprisal to participate in her uprising.

One of her teachers went down to the Bears classroom and explained the Aleita was defecting from the Penguin room. Aleita dumped her stuff right inside the door, hugged her previous teachers and announced, “I’m back!” I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for them to contain their excitement. Kudos to them, however - - they played along with her upheaval plans and invited her to join them for the art project they were just starting to work on. During the art lesson, they made several comments to Aleita that they were so glad she had come back, but they were surprised that a FOUR year old would want to be in the room with THREE year olds….but that was ok…..she must like THREE year olds and acting like the THREE year olds do. From what we were told, they laid it in pretty thick for her. About 20 minutes later as the art project neared completion, she announced that she was returning to the Penguins room after all and that had decided that she needed to be with the other four year olds after all.

Her teacher in the Penguins room welcomed her back, but did so conditionally. She explained to her that there would be no more renegade action on Aleita’s part, and if she chose to leave again, she would probably have to just stay with the three year olds from now on. Aleita promised her that she was back to stay and vowed to stray now more.

There is a special place in heaven for preschool teachers. God bless them for their patience and ingenuity and of course, for being willing to put up with my crazy child.