Preschool Wrestling Match

Today my littlest guy got in trouble at school and I can't say I'm too surprised.

This is the same 2.5 year old kid that came downstairs last week, shirt off and camouflage sweatpants lowered, with his paci in his mouth (it's supposed to stay in his room) and a wicked grin framing the paci. He stood across the hardwood kitchen floor from me arms akimbo and swayed his belly back and forth to show me just who was the current Paci Boss.

"B!" I said with mock surprise, "You..."

He removed his paci with record speed. "Little Stinker?" he said, left eyebrow actually cocked up toward his scalp. (B has the expressions of a practiced daytime TV actress. Whether this is a good or bad thing, I'm not quite sure.)

"Yup," I said. "That's it." I shook my head at him and prepared for the paci power struggle that would ensue. With all the Shakespearean drama of a tragic play B bemoaned the loss of his little blue and opaque plastic friend. By the way, he also has a similar yellow friend, and an orange one. All three must go to bed with him at nap time and nighttime. After B is laid down in his crib he cycles each paci through a 3-4 second sucking rotation where, I can only suppose, they are each warmed up for the long night ahead. Eventually he settles on one of the three and tucks the other two in under his blankie. "Night night," he says to each, and pats the blankie over their, I dunno...heads? I'm not sure but I think we've already gone to hell and back past that point where an object becomes an actual friend for the child. The thought of removing these pacis from his life is akin to removing his left arm. No, his right. He's right handed. But the kid loves Jelly Bellys a lot too. Guess we'll go through a few boxes of those when we depacify.

This is starting to sound like a description of a kid who would more likely cry in a corner at school than wrestle or suggest a rugby practice on the ABC mat, which is really more like my son. He may love his pacifier, but piss off if you don't want to wrestle. I'm secretly, or not so secretly, convinced that he has already sent out some sort of application to all nationwide fraternity houses requesting special procedures for aspiring pledges under the age of 3. The kid sometimes can be caught staring up into the sky murmuring "Teacher Wendy's boobies..." with a smile on his face. It's an issue. We're dealing with it. Honest.

Anyway, when another mom-friend and I went to pick up our two angel boys, Teacher Lynn, who has an English accent that makes everything she says sound like she's talking about grown drunken men instead of preschoolers said "I jus hav ta tell ya ladies. Today was noot reel easy for tha boys."

Feeling, as I always do, as if I had to respond in a similar accent, I believe my immediate utterance was "Aye! No?" or something like this before I asked what happened and how I should handle it. It seems the boys were wrestling (no shock) to the point of catching other unsuspecting preschoolers in their dog piles, thus squishing the bottom pilers (whom were conveniently never either one of the instigators). I should mention that these two guys, my son and his friend J, are like brothers. They love each other immensely, almost never leave the house without asking if they are being taken to visit the other, and can always be trusted to want the same exact toy at the same exact time. They are also both younger brothers of older tough guys, so we moms are never, ever worried about their safety. We are always worried about the "other guy". I winced as I thought of some of the darling little girls in B's class being pinned, matching Polo dresses and over sized gingham hair ribbons and all, on the bottom of this mess of sweaty boys.

The wrestling wasn't all they did. Today our boys got nasty (though thankfully, it seems, only with each other). Hitting, pushing, shrill toddler shrieking (you know what I mean moms, that noise you want to lose your hearing to avoid). Finally, Teacher Lynn confessed to us, "I made 'em cry. I do believe I 'urt em but it 'twas the only thing to do."

That's right. Separation. No similar activities for B and J for the rest of the day. When J approached the drawing table B was at, B was ushered to the train table. When B attempted to build a castle out of blocks and J bounded over to join in, he was instead redirected to the easel. (Note: "redirected" can sometimes loosely be used in place of "strapped down and transported".) In case you haven't heard, two year old best bosom buddy boy friends don't separate well, especially when they're stuck in the same room for four hours with a 5 to 1 kid/teacher ratio. In other words, Teacher Lynn looked tired when pickup time came.

When I got B into the car after school I asked him if he and J had been wrestling. "Umm," he said. "Yes."

"You know that isn't-"

"I sorry," B said. "Acteetee."

"Actie?" I said. "What do you mean? You were acting?"

"No," he said. "No same acteetee."

"Oh." Lightbulb. "You couldn't do the same activity?"

"Yes," he said, bottom lip quivering. "No same activtee."

The poor little guy was sad. He deserved it, but regretful tears are always persuasive enough to illicit my sympathy. Well, I often complain about the cost of preschool. I still will, but today I think I got my money's worth. I think he learned a lesson, and for once I didn't have to be the bad guy who taught it to him.