Today was Nate's Preschool Orientation and I was super excited to be playing the role of "mom" and not the role of teacher!  Last year I was pregnant and very uncomfortable and had to miss Nate's Orientation.  This year I wasn't going to skip it just because I knew what was going to happen.  I mean . . . I typed up the newsletter myself!  :)

It was nice to see some of the students I had last year and the year before.  It was nice to see some familiar parents and be able to sit and listen to all of the important information I will need to tell the parents that come to see me tomorrow!  Hearing it once really does kind of calm my fears about forgetting something tomorrow.

I'm also really excited that Nate has a wonderful group of women teaching him this year.  They are kind and understanding and very very patient.  Keeping that in mind . . . I'm sure you are curious about the X-rated Fairy Tale addition to the title of this post.  You see...today I added ANOTHER story to tell my children and their future significant others to embarrass them slightly.  Just a little bit this time...nothing like the last one...to tell the truth it probably isn't embarrassing for him at all - but I'm sure I blushed a little.

Nate's teacher decided that she would share the story of Little Red Riding Hood with them today.  She totally ad libbed it (which I would probably have been too nervous to do in front of adults but may be able to do with 3 year-olds).  She talked to them about how we shouldn't talk to strangers because, even if they look nice, they may not be nice.  She asked the kids a few questions and some children even raised their hand during the story.  When she got to the part about the wolf getting to grandma's house before Little Red Riding Hood, she asked what the students thought that the wolf did with grandma.  She then quickly explained that he put her in the closet because a lot of the children were talking about the wolf eating grandma.  She said that he would maybe eat her later but hid her in the closet for now.  This is when Nate raised his hand . . . I decided to try to get him to just listen but his teacher spotted him and asked him what it was that he wanted to say.  It took him about 20 seconds (which felt like 5 minutes) to say, "First, he has to take all her clothes off."

Yep.  He did.  Luckily, his teacher told him that the wolf would probably just take an extra set of grandma's clothes to wear because naked grandma's are scary...and all the parents laughed...but my initial thought was, "Great.  Now all these parents are going to think I tell X-rated Fairy Tales at home."  Which, of course, none of them did because they are all parents of 4 and 5 year olds and they completely understand how kids don't know things don't always sound the way they mean them to all the time.

I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling extra sensitive when it comes to this kind of thing, though.  I worry about how other parents and other kids will view my kids because I LOVE my kids.  I think they are amazing and they are just the neatest, most wonderful and special little people in the whole world. My hope is that everyone will see that - or make an effort to see it - but I know that won't always be the case.  This part of parenting is new to me and I'm sure it will get easier. . . but right now I have an incredible urge to lock them up and keep them safe at home with me who will sometimes be angry with something they did but always love them.

Okay - that's enough of that because I'm NOT going to cry while writing a blog post....that's just insane!

By the way ~ if you want to see something that did make me cry you can check out the pictures that my friend, Shannon, took yesterday.  I'm pretty sure you have to head to her Facebook page because her blog is under construction.  Here's the link  -  and a few of my favorites!  Seriously, though - check out the link because she posted over 90 pics of them yesterday and narrowing it down to just a few to put on here was REALLY tough!  There are so many more great ones on her page!