goodbye, preschool {well, sorta}

We went to The Bean's preschool graduation this weekend, which is hysterical as he's right back there this morning, and will be, until the end of the summer when we jump feet first into The Kindergarten Era. They call it Summer Session, but it looks and tastes and smells like preschool, so while watching a bunch of five year olds collect diplomas and teddy bears was cute, aside from bookending our first foray into the world of preschool, I'm not sure just how significant it was. I think it's been fairly well documented here that I had a hard time giving over to the preschool experience. I didn't like all the rules and the inexplicable mandates. A lot of that lessened this fall when Q moved from the little kid class to the pre-K class. Suddenly, not only was his teacher talking to him like a fully formed human, shockingly! we - the parents - were being communicated with as adults. There were monthly calendars and instructions for field trips and when to bring the classroom flowers and were to put the classroom flowers when it was your turn to bring them. Not exactly life altering stuff, but extremely helpful when you're trying to get out the door in the morning with two small people screaming at you for long-lost toy cars and shoes and asking if it's the weekend yet. That being said I was in a full-on preschool-righteous-rage this past Saturday morning whilst frosting strawberry cupcakes for the big celebration as I hear The Graduate informing MAS that he can't possibly wear the "Sunday Best" clothes I shopped for instead of going to working Thursday morning - "dress them in their Sunday Best!" was most definitely printed on some very directive graduation flyer adorned with teddy bears (oh god! the teddy bears) earlier in the month. Ut-oh. Here we go. This instantly feels so very familiar. He can't wear his Sunday best because he's supposed to wear "jeans and a white button-up shirt". What?? It's 40 minutes before we have to walk out the door and I'm trying very hard not to take my frustration out on the innocent cupcakes. So unlike my pre-pre-school self, I take a deep breath (after admittedly ranting the tiniest bit to MAS) and simply focus on the cupcakes. I let MAS and The Bean figure it out. They look through the laundry basket (no luck) and look through his discarded clothes in the 4T bin in the garage (without luck) and move onto the one pair of jeans without holes in the knees that they find in his drawer and his Sunday Best! shirt and sweater over a white long-sleeved tee shirt. The logic being that he can peel off the Sunday Best! layers if, in fact, he's been instructed to wear the white shirt instead of the Sunday Best! garb. Jeebus. And brilliant. I guess we've all learned quite a bit these past two years. And since the Bean's baby brother is scheduled to march through those same preschool doors in a little less than two months, I'm pretty much ready to do this all over again. Lots smarter and calmer this time.