Ay Brijit.

Last night I went to a meeting for prospective kinder parents. For Gillian you know.

Anyway I didn't have to go because I have had these same nazi teachers with Bridget and loved it but I hardly wanted to hear an hour-long thing on what to expect in the kinder class, but the principal asked if I would be there to answer questions from these new parents, etc.

So I think in my mind, fun, super fun, I can just bring Meg, we can listen and she can smile at people in the audience, and my kids can go to the kids room/childcare room and have fun playing while I can recruit some new parents for our board.

After one hour of listening to the teachers share the minutia of their classroom procedures in two languages (twice as long, yo) I see Bridget running up the ramp and the following dialogue ensues:

B: We are soooo bored!
Me: Yeah me too, tell the other two that we will leave in FIVE minutes, k?
B: K. Seriously, five minutes tho.
Me: K.

The meeting finally ends after 1 hour and 25 minutes of total torture (don't ask if I played with my phone because I had a baby who was getting really bored on my hands) and I of course cannot stay to answer questions now which has defeated the purpose of staying.

I go to collect my kids from the childcare and it takes TEN minutes for them to leave because the two teachers aides who are in the room won't let the kids leave until they can actually see the faces and hear some kind of identifying detail about each of the kids and the parents are lined up at the door, pushing to try to free their children. Let me remind you that I have a kid in the FOURTH grade who does not need this kind of watchful care, especially when the lady watching them has known him and our family for three years now.

Anywho, they finally all three pile out the door and they are all crying except for Bridget. I ask what is going on and they start screaming

IT was like JAIL
It was the worst place EVER

Prospective kinder parents everywhere are turning and rejoicing that this might not be their top choice.

Let me say that normally my kids are not dramatic like this and it must have been really bad for two of them to be crying in public, so when I finally calm them down (offering ice cream as a truce for what must have been really superly annoying) it turns out that they were only allowed to color for the entire 1 hour 45--they couldn't read any books in the room and they couldn't touch any toys, etc. and most of the kids were crying. The kids were not allowed to leave the room for that whole time and the childcare ladies don't speak a lick of English which freaks out the little ones who don't speak Spanish (including my youngest child in the room). Total torture.

Bridget turns to the other two and says why are you crying it wasn't THAT bad. Then she turns to me and says well I escaped when I came to see you. I asked her what the ladies said when she came back into the room.

"Ay, Brijit."

I laughed but told her that sometimes it was important to follow the rules and she responded with "Yeah it is not always important to break the rules."