Where did Kindergarten go?

I honestly thought Tyler and I were going to live through Kindergarten.  We were making progress.  Last week, he actually got out of the car on his own once or twice, and he only tried to jump out of the car on the way to school once. 

He was making friends, and one day last week, he even got in trouble for goofing around.  His teacher and I both chastised him for his bad behavior even though we were both secretly thrilled that he was finally comfortable enough at school to be silly and goof off!  I just knew we had finally made it through Kindergarten Hell.  I was so wrong! 

Yesterday, Tyler got in the car and announced that he had homework.  It's been 25 years since I've been in Kindergarten, but I still remembered what Kindergarten homework was.  I figured he was supposed to go home and pick out his Show and Tell for the week or color a picture. Nope!  He had a packet full of crap!  

He handed it to me, and my heart sank.  The theme to Mission Impossible began to play on repeat in my head.  Kindergarten Hell wasn't over; it was just beginning.

The front of the homework packet included a cheerful note from the teacher informing me to try to encourage Tyler to complete one worksheet a night. The note went on to say that the packet had been designed to help reinforce concepts Tyler was learning in class, and that each sheet was intended to only take a few minutes to complete.  

All he had to do was write uppercase and lower case I's and J's 20 times each.  It should not have been a hard task.  Forty five minutes later, we were fighting over the proper way to make a lower case I.  I thought it needed to look like the example, and he was of the opinion that homework was stupid, and that I should just leave him alone.  An hour and a half later, we had a piece of paper that looked like it had survived a small nuclear eraser bomb, but it at least had 80 markings on it that somewhat resembled letters.  

I called his teacher, she's amazing, and asked what the heck had happened to Kindergarten.  She laughed, and said she often wondered that too.  I asked her if she honestly thought a homework packet was really a good thing for 5 years olds, who barely made it through the school day without going crazy.  She said that she personally wasn't a fan.  She confessed that she didn't recongnize the Kindergarten curriculum anymore.  She'd had to do away with what she felt were the most important parts of Kindergarten, nap time, show and tell, and learning through role play, to make room for concepts she fully believed belonged in the first grade classroom.  She ended the conversation by reminding me that it could be worse.  I only had to convince one 5 year old to sit still and complete a worksheet.  She spent her days convincing 25 kids to do it at once.

It's a darn good thing I don't drink.  I'm pretty sure if I did, I'd be an alcoholic by the time summer came.  

Hi! My name is Rachel, and Kindergarten homework has made me an alcoholic!

Since I don't drink, I'm going to go eat a cupcake, and try to figure out what the heck happened to Kindergarten.  I'm going to mourn the death of the precious time that was learning through role play, paste eating, show and tell, and afternoon nap time.