Oh gawd

Who knew the search for a preschool would be so difficult. If I did, I thought the challenge would be more along the lines of scheduling or transportation. The truth is I have those challenges, but the biggest one is not so much logistic as ideological.

We have a friend with a daughter just a little younger than Brett. She’s eager to send Paje to the francophone preschool attached to the francophone school here. She thought it would be so great for the kids to go to preschool already knowing someone (those three and four-year-old cliques are notoriously hard to penetrate) that she offered to take Brett to the babysitter’s for me. Transportation problem solved (at this age, preschool is usually only half a day, and only a couple days per week).

We went to visit Les petites abeilles earlier this fall. Brett was thrilled! Colours, numbers, letters, stuff in French. He participated, played, and engaged. He was sad when we left and talked about going back. What he didn’t hear was the conversation I had with the teacher while he was playing, the one where she told me they pray before snack time.

This week we went to visit A-Z Preschool. Toys, crafts, songs, and lots of room for playing. And they have space for him in the morning class, an important scheduling concern since Brett still naps in the afternoon. I had the chance to talk to the teacher’s helper about the usual structure of the day. Blah, blah, blah, the usual stuff, prayers and then snack.

Huh?

There were a lot of nativity scenes around the craft room, but I didn’t think too much about it. So I asked the helper-lady if the teacher would be open to some other cultural material for the kids. “Oh sure,” she said. “She already teaches about christmas celebrations around the world.”

Hmmmm.

In our small town (pop. just over 12,000), I’m running out of options. Turns out one of the other kids at Brett’s babysitter is Jewish. His mom told me we’re the only ones in Cochrane.

We may have to open our own preschool.