After all the drama and trauma I've shared over the past close-to-two-years of blogging here concerning my kids and school, I decided to hold out on y'all in the latest round of tears and turmoil.

With the crushing defeats I've suffered at the hands of my tiny and delicate little flower of a Cj over repeated attempts to interest her in a world wider than our veranda and populated with ever-so-interesting characters of her approximate shape and size, I've been reticent to blah, blah, blog on about another attempt, at least at the outset.

There's no doubt that she's beginning to get bored at home on days when her brother isn't around. The challenges around the house are pretty well conquered, and when I realized she's now got the remote control sussed, can put her own DVDs on and get them to play, I knew the time had come for her to branch out into pastures more vast that those confined to our little valley.

With last Wednesday being the day Sam was to return to school after a four-week break, it seemed as good a time as any to toss my youngest into the deep end of a horrifying pit of anxiety-ridden experience that was bound to include a session of having to peel her off me like red fuzz from Elmo. (Okay, that's a pretty drastic POV on the situation, but reflects my take well.)

We had tried the slow and gradual route, with my mother-in-law taking her to the preschool for a twenty-minute session every morning for a couple of weeks, but that eventually revealed itself to be less than a good plan of action. The twenty minutes were fine and dandy, but that was that; any more, and any hint of Grandma doing a dash brought out the advanced artillery and led to an atomic meltdown.

Continued in the next post.