Kindergarten memories or why can't I stay home and watch The Price is Right?

We recently had to decide whether or not to send Julia to kindergarten this year or wait another year. Julia is one those lucky individuals who has an August birthday, so she's on the fence about whether or not she can go after just turning 5-years-old or wait until she's 6.

It's a double-edged sword. If she goes at 5, she'll be one of the youngest kids in her class. If she goes at 6, she'll be one of the oldest kids in her class. Either way, she'll probably end up hating us for some reason relating to her age, like the fact that she can't celebrate her birthday during the school year, which will undoubtedly make it a lot harder to track down kids to know who to invite. It was a snap when I was in school. I had a March birthday, so it was easy to just bring all of the birthday invitations to school and invite kids that I wouldn't normally call friends to Bill and I's birthday party.

I used to think that having my birthday in March was pretty nice until I hit college. It was then that I realized that it sucked ass. Because Spring Break landed in the middle of my birthday week almost every year I was in college, I never got the obligatory "Let's go out and get Bob wasted because it's his birthday" night because my friends were home because the stupid dorm was closed that week.

Having a summer birthday will suck while she's in school. Then it will become cool when she's an adult because she'll get to plan a great summer party that's also her birthday part. See how it all works out in the end? I'll have to keep reminding her when she complains about her August birthday during grade school that one day she'll be throwing some kicking summer parties and she can thank me then.

It's not like she has the lame birthday on Christmas, which means she'll be getting Christmas/Birthday presents for the rest of her like. I always felt sorry for that poor bastard in my school with that situation.

But this post isn't about birthdays, it's about Kindergarten.

While I've been struggling about when to send Julia to Kindergarten, I thought back to when I went to Kindergarten.

Bill and I were 5 and 1/2 when we went to Kindergarten. I don't remember much about the build up to Kindergarten except for a few days when my Mom sat us down to practice writing our names.

The first day of Kindergarten was a little traumatic. I didn't realize that day that it would start a trend on never getting my Falls and Springs off again. I just figured that it was a short-lived experiment.

I remember the first day of school vividly only because of what I did wrong. I went into the wrong bathroom. It would start a trend where I would worry about bathrooms and their locations, but that's a different story.

In our grade school, the Kindergartens had bathrooms inside the classroom at the back of the class. I guess they figured that if you left the room and took a wrong turn, you'd never be heard from again. Maybe they were afraid we'd be hazed inside the bathroom and then we'd never want to go there again. Whatever the reason, we had them.

Unfortunately for me, they were not labeled as Boys and Girls. Rather, there was a picture of Charlie Brown on one and a picture or Lucy on the other one. Seeing as the Charlie Brown one was occupied, I had to go, so I went in the Lucy one.

I remember almost gagging because the last person that went there did not flush a number two silo. I still remember that it was pretty big. To make matters worse, after flushing the mess and then going myself, I had to answer the door with two girls outside telling me that I was in the wrong bathroom.

I'm sure that the teacher explained which bathroom was which, but giving the distracted nature of kids, it's a miracle that 90 percent of them hear your instructions let alone all of them. I should know. I student taught seventh and eighth graders. I don't know how many times, I would not only tell the kids at least two times what the assignment was AND wrote it on the board only to have them come in the next day and have several go, "Homework? I didn't hear about this!"

Another distressing thing about Kindergarten was the fact that I couldn't understand why I couldn't stay home and watch my shows, especially the Price is Right.

I loved watching the Price is Right when I was a kid. It had a format that was consistent, but the games the contestant played were also changed up to keep the show fresh. I loved them all: Plinko, the Rock Climber game, the big-ass dice game, the switch the prizes around game, the wheel segment and the Showcase Showdown.

Besides the Price is Right, there were other game shows like Password to bide the time over before the useless soap operas hit the screen at 11 am. I never could figure out why they ruined a great run by breaking into boring dialogue all day long.

So I'm sitting there thinking about my shows and wondering how long this was going to last. I literally thought this was going to be just a few days and then it was back to TV, but that was a wrong answer. We were stuck there... at least until lunch, when we went home. We were on half-day kindergarten schedules back then and I used to envy the kids that had it in the afternoon after we left. At least they got to see the good shows!

You may laugh at my feeling about kindergarten and it's show-blocking technique on me, but I mentioned this to a friend at work and he had the same realization.

"That's what I was thinking, too!" he exclaimed when I mentioned that I couldn't understand why I had to miss my shows.

Kids today don't have to worry about that as much. They have their DVRs, their DVDs and hours upon hours of cartoons and kid shows that run all morning into the evening on a handful of channels. Lucky bastards. Like any piece of technology that gives me a choice of more of what I want, I would have given my left nut, whoever small it was back then, to be able to have access to all the choices kids have today. Back then, if you didn't like it and it was the only thing on, you'd watch it anyway because it was better than nothing.

At least Julia won't have the transition period like I did. She already goes to a school-like day care in which she doesn't get to watch much television.

Her entire class (six kids) will graduate Pre School and go on to Kindergarten next year, but Julia will not. I hope she enjoys the extra year without the pressure of succeeding and moving from grade to grade. I think I would have enjoyed it when I was a kid. At least I would have gotten to see The Price is Right one more year.

I hope no one saw that...

So I was telling my Mom about the last story. The one in which my 4-year-old daughter snapped the cat's collar on her and took off running to show how far she can run. The one that ended with the rope snapping taught and my daughter getting pulled back. That one.

It was a little scary, but also a little funny after the fact.

When I told my Mom the story, her response was, "I hope no one saw that!"

I laughed, "Why?"

"Because someone might have gotten the wrong idea and called the police."

I started to get a little mad.

"Who would call the police on that?"

"You never know," she said.

I understood what she was getting at, but I was still mad at the paranoia.

"Hey, if anyone ever tried to take Julia away for something that stupid, I would make their lives a living hell."

It got me thinking about today. People are sooo protective of the children. Sometimes, we go a little far in some areas and not far enough in other areas.

Think about it, when I grew up, it was common practice that mothers would go into the store and leave their kids in the parking lot. I ought to know, I was left out in the parking lot in my Mom's van with my other siblings. Rather, we were victims that were left out in the hot sun with no air conditioning and no water, with only each other to cling to for comfort. Just kidding Mom!

Actually, if one was to come across the scene, it would look us kids were having a great time!

Sometimes, we would come up with activities to amuse ourselves. A popular activity was steering wheel rides. One of us would sit on the bottom part of the steering wheel and hold on with our hands. A sibling or two would spin the steering wheel back and forth to give a nice ride. It was great... I mean, it was a great way to misbehave, and now completely impossible what with the locking steering wheels that cars have today.

Another activity while left in a hot van while your Mom shopped was to honk the horn. Oh sure, it doesn't sound too fun, but it became a game by seeing how many times you could honk the horn before our Mom came out pissed off. You could play this with a defiant sibling honking or daring someone to honk. Invariably, my Mom would be checking out when someone at the checkout would comment, "Your kids have been honking the horn." She'd come to window and glare out at us. We'd stop right away. We pushed buttons, but we weren't stupid.

Nowadays, you're just asking to get reported for child neglect if you leave your kid out in the car for just a second.

I was witness to this taken to extremes. When I worked at Pizza Hut, our shift manager at the time called the police on a customer, whose kids were waiting in the car outside some 10 feet away while their Mom sat inside waiting for the pizza. It's a good thing he came too because what with people coming and going the Mom that far away, they might have been without aid for 30 whole seconds.

It's amazing how far we've come. We've come from kids being left out in cars, kids in no car seats and kids not even buckled in to every type of safety device holding our kids into something. Don't get me wrong. It's probably a good idea, but as the attention Britney Spears is getting for her hair-brained child seat techniques shows, people are just a tad sensitive.

I joked to my Mom that today, she'd be put in jail many times over for her actions in the past, but that's just the way it was back then. Leaving your kids in the car was convenience. Now it's abuse.

Same with the leash story. Back then, it was always funny because kids do silly things. Now it's your fault for not anticipating their silly actions.