As it Turns out...Pre-School is Cool

So when B makes up his mind about something, there's usually no point in trying to change it.

From the time we first started discussing potty training, he was determined that he wasn't going to pee on the potty, and he didn't.

Not until he was four, and I locked the two of us in the bathroom and told him we weren't leaving until he used that toilet.

Before that, he was adamant that he wasn't getting his hair cut, and he didn't. Not when I took him to the nice ladies at the kids hair salon. Not when I took him with me to the Hair Cuttery. Not when Jimmy tried cutting his hair in our kitchen.

Eventually, Jimmy took him to the barber shop with him, and B decided that that was an acceptable time and place to get his hair cut.

So when B declared that he wasn't going to preschool, I was little nervous. Of course, I knew otherwise. I knew that he was going to go to preschool. I just didn't know what was going to happen when he got there.

Would he kick?

Scream?

Throw things?

What actually happened was this: We went one morning together, and he started to cry as I went across the hall, and he was off by himself, hiding, when I came back to pick him up an hour later. We went back again a few days alter, and as I dropped him off, he gave me a look that said "I know I'm staying, but if you stand in that door way one more minute I'm gonna cry". So I left.

And I cried.

And then he came home, and he told me that he liked his teacher's pretty red dress, and he hoped she would wear it again soon. And he started asking when he could go back to school. He started counting the days. He talked about his friends. And his teachers. And he smiled.

Now, when we pull into the pre-school driveway, he claps.

Claps.

And cheers.

And I wonder what I was so worried about.

B recently asked me about college. The part about possibly moving out of our home didn't go over so well. He informed me that he wasn't going to college. He wasn't moving out. He wants to stay here with me.

After all, I make him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and read him stories, and lay down with him at night before bed.

Besides, we have a cool play room. Who would want to give up all of that?

I thought of telling him that he doesn't have to move out, and that I'll make him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches until he's fifty, but I realized that probably wasn't the right answer.

Instead, I told him that he might change his mind when he's older, and that if he has a wife someday, she probably won't want to live here and have me lay down with him at night before bed.

"No wife!" he yelled.

Phew.

I made him put it in writing.

Of course, I don't really want him to live here forever. I hope he can at least make his own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by the time he's thirty. And if he ends up with some bitchy wife who won't let me lay down with him at night and read him bedtime stories, I can probably deal with that.

I just want him to WANT to live here when he's thirty.

I want him to be happy playing with the miniature cars in the playroom, instead of wanting to drive a real one. I want him to be in my kitchen drinking milk instead of out in a bar doing shots of Jagermeister.

I want to be able to sneak into his room at night to watch him while he's sleeping, instead of having him sneak out of his room when he thinks I'm sleeping.

But if past experience is any indication,  the things he tells me he never wants to do are the exact things that he will someday love.

"No haircut! No potty! No preschool!" was his mantra for a while.

And now he's quite enamored with all three.

I guess that means that someday, our playroom won't be cool anymore.

In spite of his declarations to the contrary, I suspect that he'll someday move out, and go to college, and maybe even find a wife.

And that, of course, is how it should be.

But me?

I'm still making him peanut butter and jelly until he's fifty.

Just try to stop me.