It's Not Personal

Two weeks ago, GK began going to a new school. It's a Montessori school in Midtown that many of our friends' kids attend. JP and S attended this same school before signing up for the public school they're enrolled in now. I took the opportunity of that first week of school for GK, this giant step forward, to write a post here. For various reasons, I'm going to do something I don't do very often; I'm going to apologize. (Just ask Big Mama, this hardly ever happens.) I'm sorry if what I wrote belittled what you teachers and caretakers do every day. Be sure that if Kristy and I weren't comfortable, weren't completely happy with where our children stayed for seven hours a day, five days a week when out of our sight, then we would not leave them there. We wouldn't even consider it. GK has done great these past two weeks in Montessori and we have every confidence that she will continue to do so under the care of the women I leave her with in the morning.

Ah, but it's not that easy, is it? Because I'm also going to explain myself. I'm going to explain, as I do every so often, that the main purpose of Urf! is to amuse myself. And one other thing, I'm a smartass. It's genetic. You have to take everything you read at this URL with such a large grain of salt that you may want to have a tall glass of water on hand. Or a deep, deep margarita. I see the changes my children go through as funny and I try to make others see it that way as well. But I'm also extremely protective of The Quartet, and were I really unhappy with GK's school situation then you would know it, make no mistake about that. If I weren't also watching The Godfather as I write this, I'd go back and look through the archives to link to posts I've written here wherein I've had serious problems with the City School System and there isn't much humor at all to be found there. Sure, there was some humor, because I just can't help being funny, hilarious at times even. And if you look back, I guarantee you'll find many, many more posts where I good-naturedly poke fun at the public school, my kids' friends, their teachers and assignments as well as some of the rules they're made to follow. An overly-structured school environment for six-year-olds is funny to me. But so is a non-structured environment. Why? Because kids are silly, and putting them into different little ecosystems and watching how they behave is funny to me, and this is where I write about it.

I really am sorry if what I wrote previously was construed in any way as being malicious; it most certainly was not meant to be and I was surprised to find that it was taken this way. Almost as surprised as I was to find out that instead of six readers, it appears I have seven. Who knew? But I hope the fine teachers at this particular school will continue reading and that they will laugh along with me. And I hope that if they don't, they won't take it out on GK, because she's going to need those cloth diapers attended to regularly.