Post 100!

Today was Kindercare's Open House, so I decided to take Nicholas there for an hour or so this morning so he could meet his class and I could meet his new teachers. Nicholas has already been to Kindercare lots of times when I would pick up Owen, but he's been locked up in a stroller for those trips. This time, he got to go into his toddlers' classroom. As it turns out, we really only stayed for about a half an hour, but in that very brief window of time, Nicholas managed to eat four helpings of Pepperidge Farm goldfish for his morning snack, christen himself with his little dixie cup of water (he's so used to sippy cups that he thinks real ones are fun water toys!), unearth a crayon wedged underneath the partition, crawl into the two hand-washing sinks, climb the table on which he and all of his classmates were coloring, and escape via the open door of the classroom when two visitors came through for a tour. His teachers assure me that all toddlers are like him, but I see that look in their eyes; it's the same look in the eyes of people who tell you "You look SO BEAUTIFUL" when you're nine months pregnant and have cankles the size of telephone poles. Well intentioned, I know, but transparent.

Before we left, I got a copy of the curriculum for Nicholas' class. Yes, curriculum. He's not even two, and yet he has a clear set of educational objectives to meet. This sounds totally ridiculous, right? Well, I thought so too when I got Owen's set of toddler objectives about two years ago. But once those tuition bills rolled on in, I wanted to make ABSOLUTELY sure that every one of those objectives was being met. Owen should be entering kindergarten in a few years with a full PhD. Nicholas should have his bachelor's by the end of this year. Here are some of my favorite objectives:

Under Language and Communication: Shows interest in books (throwing them or reading them?)

Cognitive Development: Explores cause and effect (IF I push the recliner across the living room, THEN Mommy yells at me)

Social and Emotional Development: Shows many emotions (Have you seen the film "The Many faces of Nicholas"?)

Physical Development: Shows increasing control of drawing, writing and art tools (Translation: Only tries to eat the Sharpie markers 50% of the time)

Creative Arts: Expresses self through art (Question: does passing gas count as self-expression?)

Part of me wonders if child care companies adopted these curricula to assure parents that their children were, in fact, learning and not eating paste, their boogers, or a combination of both. I definitely know that my kids learn at Kindercare, and as a teacher, I prefer to look back on all the objectives I met in a lesson once that lesson is taught. There are usually far more objectives met than those outlined in my plan book. I suspect it's the same in the toddler's class!