Community Ed Drop-Out

I've decided to drop out of my weekly community ed/ECFE class with AC. What kind of loser drops out of community ed class? I do. That's who.

This whole "semester" of class has been little more than heartache for me. I skipped the very first class, because I had my friend's pre-tummy tuck party to attend. When I went to the second class, during parenting time, the educator discussed the possibility of bringing in speakers. She mentioned the owner of a funeral home, who could speak to us on grief and explaining grief to children.

At that particular moment, I was overcome with my own community ed class-infused grief, and I sat staring blankly at the table. Secretly, I was thinking snide comments like, "How do you explain to your toddler that her family unit is dead?", but I really was in no mood for smiling. Much to my horror, the instructor must've seen the bizarre look on my face, and called my out by asking, "Did you have anything to add to the grief topic?". I found this to be a little more than rude: what if I was truly experiencing grief over a death in the family? Who was she to call me out on anything like that?

The past couple of classes have been rough for me, plus AC isn't enjoying them as much as she did last year, probably because she's already spent all day in "school", what we call her daycare, as it has a pre-school curriculum.

This week pushed me over the edge. The couple that reminds me of the Married Guy and his Wife both come to class, because two classes are held at the same time--one in the baby room and one in the big-kid room. The dad accompanies the kid in the big-kid room, the same room as AC. His kid decided to sit down next to AC to play Play-Doh, so here I was, one of the only mothers in the room without a wedding ring on, much less a baby daddy present, and I was stuck sitting next to the guy who reminds me of my Married Guy--the closest thing I have to an actual romance right now.

I cringed, sitting that close to him, because his physical resemblance to my Married Guy is just uncanny. Listening him talk to his son was gut-wrenching. I think that, to a newly divorced woman, hearing a man talk sweetly to his child is gut-wrenching. To a newly divorced woman sitting next to someone who strongly resembles someone she has feelings for while he talks sweetly to his child is near heartbreak.

In parenting class, the Married Guy look-alike and his wife sat together, and affectionately touched and teased each other. I kept tearing up, so I stared down at the table and tried to hold my eyes as wide open as I could, to prevent the tears from streaming down. After all, who the hell cries in the middle of ECFE class? If I broke down, it probably wouldn't be long until someone from child protective services showed up at my door, looking for evidence of my mental instability.

After class, it was time to put on coats, and AC broke down. In front of all of the parents and other children, she broke down, refused to put on her coat and screamed, "I don't want to go to Daddy's house! I want to go home!", over and over. I was so close to tears already that my own hot, salty tears did start streaming down my cheeks.

As I avoided eye contact with any of the other parents, I managed to wrestle AC into her coat, hat and boots, and pick her up to leave, as she continued to sob and scream. As we walked out into the below-zero freezing air, our tears both free-flowed down our cheeks and I pressed my cheek to hers, blending into one frozen tear that connected the two of us.

AC and I both cried the entire drive to her Daddy's house. She cried as he took her out of her car seat, and I looked away. When I got home, I crawled into my bed and cried some more. I could've spent the rest of the evening in that very same fetal position, until I got sick of crying and stumbled out of the bedroom to hunt down my bottle of prescribed Ambien, wait 20 minutes for it to kick in, then slip into the dark, dreamless, feeling-less sleepy relief it gives me from my feelings. Instead, I promised to meet some friends, so I had no choice but to haul my ass up and out.

The next day, I emailed the ECFE instructor and told her that we won't be back for the semester. As lame as it sounds, it's simply too painful, and since I get AC for only a matter of hours on those nights, I'd rather just be with her one-on-one, instead of blending our tears into one giant tear, frozen in time.

A Classroom Beat-Down

February 10, 2009
Every Tuesday night, I rush home after work, race in the house, quickly change AC's clothes and swoop her out to the car, when I take her to our ECFE class. Tonight is no different. When she first started her classes, AC hated them. She cried and whined, and one night refused to even go in her classroom. After that, we had an upswing, and she now loves class. In fact, Tuesdays are probably the best day of the week for my husband, as he can bribe her to do virtually anything by reminding her that she has school in the evening.

AC tolerates the parent play-together time despite the fact that I am the least cool player in the world, but really, she's holding out for Circle Time and Ring Around the Rosy. She knows that once she knocks these two things off, she will be offered a snack. Much like her mother and her father, she is not one to turn down food, especially if it's free. I smirked to myself as she planted herself down at the snack table and chowed down on her sugar cookie and her apple juice while the other kids around her cried and screamed for their mothers, who were leaving the room for parenting class. Independence. Love it.

Following parenting class, the other toddlers were literally collapsed in heaps around the room, exhausted and whining. Not AC. She screamed in delight at my appearance, and quickly ran to the sandbox. Her answer when I asked if she wanted to go home? "No, thanks." Despite the fact that she does not care to follow my directions, she is at least polite. Eventually, I got her out of the sandbox and we made progress toward going home.

As she was gleefully streaking through the room, she bumped into another student. Head to head contact. The other little cried. And she cried and cried and cried, as though she had been told that someone was taking away her security blanket. AC stood stunned, not understanding what was happening. The Crier left class with her mother, and I packed AC up. All the way home, she repeated, "Sorry! Head! Hurt!" It both broke and warmed my heart that even at her young age, she can show such empathy.