My Preschool Drop Out Heads to Grad School

My Preschool Drop Out Heads to Grad School

Maureen Rossi

My new knee replacement and I looked upon the three flights of stairs as if they were Mount Everest; the one-hundred year old building had twenty-two stairs per flight opposed to the standard twelve.   Ascending slowly, I was taking in the sounds and scents of the many inhabitants of the Washington Avenue Apartment building.   I was nauseated as floor two housed one very unhygienic cat owner.  

I was looking forward to the evening with my husband in Binghamton – a short stop on our sojourn to Buffalo for his 90 year old Aunt Gloria’s wake and funeral.    Arriving in our son’s vacant apartment, I was surprised that I did not need a mask or penicillin to enter the large studio.  I was pleasantly surprised to find he had cleaned and bleached the refrigerator and freezer before headed down to Long Island after graduation.  We kept his apartment all summer at a cost of $500 a month because our twenty-two year old would be headed back up for a one-year graduate program in September.  He is a Mechanical Engineer and attends the Thomas Watson School of Engineering at S.U.N.Y. Binghamton.

Bryan spent the summer working for the New York Power Authority where he was whisked to power plants all over the state and was wined and dined by men in the industry.   In between Sushi and fine Nappa reds, he lived with his girlfriend of four years in Brooklyn for half the summer and then my husband moved them to microscopic digs in Astoria.  

Like many young adult children from Long Island, he came home on weekends to drink our good beer, eat our food and utilize our pool and boat.  We loved every expensive second of it.   A comical witty young man, he doesn’t fit the standard stereotype of an Engineer.   Captain of the Water polo team up at school he is quite social and enjoys extreme sports – you know jumping from airplanes, scuba-diving, etc. 

In between cleaning his windows and floors and bleaching the kitchen, like clips of 8 mm film, images of Bryan’s childhood danced in my head.  He was a beautiful baby – platinum blond hair and fat little Irish face with skin as white as snow.  He was a happy little baby.  From the moment he came out of the womb, his sister, two years his senior, was his very best friend.  He wanted to do everything Anne Marie did so when he was three the extremely shy and sensitive boy announced he wanted to go to school.  

I heeded and found a preschool for Bryan; however, after just a day he was insisting he didn’t want to go back.  This went on for a few days – he began to fret and cry at night, he started to refuse food.  I literally watched the very happy little boy experience stress and sadness.  I was upset by this; I was in a quandary.  I had my pediatrician, a mother of six who was also my childhood pediatrician saying it was essential I keep him in the school.  My mother-law with a degree in education also insisted it would be in his best interest to stay in pre-school.    She felt it would help Bryan when he started kindergarten because has born at the very end of November and would be the youngest in his grade as it was.

I couldn’t do it, it defied my maternal instincts.  I listened to my twenty-nine year old mommy heart and I let Bryan drop out of preschool.   He and I spent the year visiting dozens of museums, going to children’s theater, zoos and aquariums.  We did arts and crafts, we baked and fished and hiked and watched many films together.  We ate dirty water dogs in Central Park and discussed the history of the great metropolis.    It was a very special year and when he marched off to kindergarten the following year at the tender age of four, he was fine.  Ok, maybe it took a few tears and weeks but he was fine.

As I dusted the pile of video games in my man-boy’s apartment I smiled.  Bryan and I had come along way on our education journey since then.   I found a water gun on the floor beneath his Brooklyn Brewery sign.  I found stacks of books and papers with the scribblings of a mad man, algorithms, formulas and evidence of his complex course load. I found a note from his sister from her travels to Ireland this year and the Irish whiskey candy she brought back for him.

Bryan Rossi and Jen WynkoopWith the sounds of revelers from Dillingers Irish pub making their way up to the third floor apartment, I thought to myself, this is the most expensive overnight stay of my life.   We paid $1,500 for one night and we had to clean the place and fill it with food.  My husband Jay and I laughed at the absurdity of the scenario.  Over shots of Patron and glasses of filtered water I thought about my son’s life, his amazing accomplishments and what the future holds for him.  His beautiful girl Jen is a successful producer at a major network at 30 Rock; however both she and Bryan have their eyes set on L.A. after he completes grad school.  I’m cool with it – it has always been my strongest belief that God just lends us our children for just a short while.  As the glow of the Patron settled over me and warmed my sentimental heart – I thought how lucky I am that God lent me this amazing human being to raise and guide an educate – that he lent me my preschool drop out.