Reading, Writing, and Long Division

The Mud Puddle is officially a Pre-K-er this year. Which is both thrilling and heartbreaking all at the same time.

Heartbreaking because you know what comes after Pre-K? KINDERGARTEN! and you blink and he will be 10, and you blink again and he will be taking his SATS and applying to college and I will be OLD. I am tired and sad just thinking about it.

It is thrilling b/c they have changed the curriculum at daycare so they have a much more structured program for the Pre-K-ers. They focus on a letter each week and talk about the things that are important to four year olds: themselves (that convo could go on 24/7 for six months), their families, animals and future careers (so far the Mud Puddle has decided he wants to be a policeman, a fireman, a teacher, a pilot, and the guy who drives the garbage truck).

He really seems to be thriving in the class and gets closer and closer to reading on his own (not just regurgitating memorized words in a book) every day.

If I think he talks a lot now (which I do) I shudder at how much his motor mouth will be running when he opens up the gift of literacy and starts reading everything to me. (You couldn’t see it but I just rolled my eyes and said a prayer for the little sanity I have left).

Scott and I find ourselves (more so me as I am the official Team Guillemette Worrywart) about what to do with him in regards to kindergarten. Here in the great state of New Hampshire kindergarten is not mandated and not all cities have to provide it.
Luckily the one we live in does, but do we go private or public?
With all the talking he does about God (and more often than not referring to God as a ‘she’ – which I did not have anything to do with, honest) I am leaning toward sending him to Catholic school (my hope is that he will go to the Catholic high school at least) so do I:
1. Set him on that parochial school path at age five? I figure if you are going to be given God props left and right and asking me theological questions, I should involve an expert or two so he doesn’t turn out to be a heathen (like me – part Protestant, part Buddhist, mostly making it up as I go along).
Or
2. Wait until he is ready for high school and a. hope he gets in (you need to have decent grades) and b that some of friends go there?
These are the things that keep me up at night!!

In case you were worried that all this growed up Mud Puddle talk means that he speaks in an articulate, faux-British accent – guess again.
Ladies and Gentleman, the latest addition to the Mud Puddle Lexicon:

Pirates of the Taliban – that would be the movie Pirates of the Caribbean to you and me.