Preschool Perfection

I have to be one of, if not THE, most unorganized people on earth.  I have a way of going around the house and, instead of putting things back in their place, I make piles, piles of piles.  I have things to throw away piles, things to go upstairs piles, recycling piles, laundry piles, everywhere you look, I have made a pile.  It drives my husband crazy.  Not only am I a piler, but I am also a procrastinator.  However, I tend to be a procrastinating perfectionist.  It is really annoying.  I have waited until the absolute last minute to do something, but it has to be perfect or I flip out.  Makes sense, no?  It doesn't make sense to me either.  You would think that after all these years of schooling and jobs, that I would have gotten it together.  Um, no, unfortunately not even close.

This is why this week has been torturous for me.  I joined up with some ladies to start co-op preschool.  I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden you need to take out a student loan to pay for your child to finger paint and eat glue.  So, we decided to get the glue on sale and do it ourselves.  There are six kiddos in our group, two from the same family.  There are two boys and four girls and one of the girls is Little Lady's best friend.  The oldest one is five and the youngest is two.  Quite the difference at this age, but somehow it works. 

I went to school for elementary ed, but you would think from my lack of ability to teach, that I went to school to be a car mechanic.  I have loved working with children my whole life, and I thought it was my calling to be a teacher, but it wasn't meant to be.  Even though I wasn't that young when was in school, I was seriously lacking something necessary to be a teacher... self confidence.  I could not have thought about trying to control 30 kids and my mind 10 years ago.  Having four of my own girls, I know I already lost my mind, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal, right?  I get so caught up in the details of everything that I lack big picture perspective.  I worry about them seeing the leftover toothpaste on the sink instead of what I am going to teach them.  I think this is a metaphor for my life.  I sweat all of the small stuff, all the time.  I wonder why I have to constantly remind myself that they are little kids and that they just want to have a good time or that it is more important that they are at church, not the fact that they look like they just walked out of a salon.  I wonder where I get all of this craziness.

So, here I am, up until all hours of the night, planning lessons over and over, so I can agonize tomorrow over whether or not six little ones had the best day of preschool they have ever had, instead of just sitting back and having fun and learning a little something myself.  Hopefully, I can get my act together and see the big picture.  This is why I think I would be the world's best factory worker.

Just as a side note, preschool went great.  I had too many activities and we didn't get to them all.  It wasn't perfect (considering I had ten kids here by myself, the fact that we are all still alive is amazing), but I think I actually managed to have some fun.