Stop! Don't go. You're too young to go . . . to kindergarten

My 5-year-old daughter, Maddison, starts kindergarten tomorrow. I've recently taken up praying `twice' a day. These are not unrelated developments.

My fears are no longer assuaged by a nighttime theological checkup. No more, "Please forgive me, I'm a sinner, yada yada, man, I'm sleepy, Lord, we'll talk more tomorrow." I need serious bucking up. We're talking three-hour exploratory surgery on the psyche.

Why? Didn't you read the first paragraph? My SWEET ANGEL OF PURITY AND UNASSAILABLE, EXALTED, PROMETHEAN WONDERFULNESS -- we're talking `Daddy's little pumpkin,' here -- is beginning school tomorrow.

Some people -- like my wife and my friends and most of my family members and the occasional stranger to whom I scream "She's too YOUNG to go!" -- think I'm overreacting. They say that 5-year-olds have been attending kindergarten for many years. They tell me that most of them survive this rite of passage. They tell me the things I'm threatening to do to anyone who so much as bumps into my daughter are quite illegal. They call me "overprotective."

Nevertheless, I remember how cruel kids can be, how frightening school can be. My first day of first grade, the teacher wouldn't let me ask to go to the bathroom, because she'd told us all to work on our assignment quietly. So, as my grandmother later explained it to school officials, "He decided to tinkle right there in his britches."

Maddison is smarter than I, so her talking her way into the bathroom isn't so much a concern. No, my greatest fears center on two things:

1) How mean kids can be.
2) How much I'm going to lose standing within my circle of guy friends by bawling like I'm in the last 10 minutes of `The Blair Witch Project.'

* Do not push my daughter, or I will track you down and push you back.
* Do not make fun of my daughter's clothing, hairstyle or speech patterns, or I will track down your parents at work and mock them, and they will take away your PlayStation privileges.
* Do not take something that is hers and claim that it is yours -- in fact, don't touch her stuff, period, or I will show up at your house and offer your parents $1,000 cash for all your favorite toys, laughing maniacally the entire time.
* Be her friend, or I will spread rumors that you're still hooked on preschool fare like Barney and 'Teletubbies.'
* Notice when she gets her hair cut. She likes that.

"Daddy, what's wrong with you, silly?" she asked me after handing me the list.

"I'm sorry, baby" I said courageously before blurting out, "but . . . your first Elmer's glue!"

She ran off yelling something to Mommy about how Daddy "was being rah-rah Scooby-Doo crazy," but that's beside the point. The point is this: Do you think I should take a vacation this week and stand in the hallway between her classes, or should I just pray she never grows up? Which one seems less outer-limits nutbar?

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