A general update...

Colin has taught me a lot in the past few days.

"We don't eat dachshunds, Mommy."

"Dachshunds don't wear swimsuits, Mommy."

"There are too many kids, so there's no swings available."

"She's a baby, so she not learn."

Hayden, of course, is progressing along at her own speed - which is approximately 1.5 times the speed of her brother at the same age. She got her first tooth on 8/30, the second one popped out earlier this week, and the following day, she pulled herself to standing in her crib, inched her way over, and grabbed her mobile. Though she's not crawling yet, we're expecting her to graduate from the commando crawl any day now.

Meanwhile, I'm still about 1700 e-mails behind in my professional groups, I started back to work one day per week, and the kitchen has never looked cleaner. Bravo.

The saga of the "potty-training classroom" reaches its narrative climax....

... just after the dramatic climax, which was when I found Colin's teacher with gloves on, emptying poo into a toilet, with boys running up and down the portable hallway, and she couldn't call for help because she was one over the appropriate ratio.

Yes. Seriously.

The Powers That Be had decided that Colin's class - which is a "potty-training class" - should be moved to a room without a toilet. Previously, they had a room with a bathroom in it, protected by a Dutch door so she could monitor the kids if they felt the natural "need to go" when it wasn't the hourly potty time. But because they had enough kids in the year-old classroom to fill two rooms, they moved his class to a room in a portable where you had to leave the classroom and walk down a hallway to get to the bathrooms.

Now it doesn't take an MA in Education to know that that isn't in the best interest of the kids!

Three pediatricians agreed with me. Four other teachers agreed with me. Other parents agreed with me.

So when the Powers That Be told me that it would be "wonderful" and that "they've always done potty training in that room," I asked, "How will the teacher cover preschool curriculum if she needs to take eight kids to the bathroom every hour, plus gather everyone if one person needs to go, or has an accident?" They said, "Oh, the curriculum is going to be potty training. That's it. We want to get them in and out as fast as we can."

Colin only attends two times per week. So my child, who knows his shapes up to trapezoid, would not be getting any academic curriculum. For a long time. Because at that rate of attendance, potty training wasn't going to happen in a fortnight.

I also pointed out that, while they have always done potty training in that room, it's never been the main curriculum.

Also, they told me that the teacher "needed to learn how to manage the class" and that "legally, we could have twelve kids in there." I pointed out that we pay for a one to eight ratio, not one to twelve.

Still, they didn't budge.

They complained to the teacher that she should have "smiled and said everything was fine" when I went into the bathroom that day.

I said, "No PR job can cover up what I know as an educator. This is not your fault, [teacher's name]."

She told the Powers That Be how unreasonable the situation was. They said, "We don't have to come down there - we've done this before."

Well, she took two days off that week. The Powers That Be needed to fill in.

On Tuesday, she reported that they are providing a second teacher for her AND knocking down the wall to create an entrance to the bathroom from the classroom.

But I thought they ALWAYS did potty training in that room!

I hugged Colin's teacher. And smirked and smirked and smirked all my way out the door.

It feels so good to be.... RIGHT! (For once?)