On September 5th, 2007 my little boy started Kindergarten. It was both a happy and a sad day for me. Number 1, my little boy is growing up and becoming more independent and number 2, he is now he is exposed to some things that I have no control over. Being teacher, I have seen kids coming into my classroom for the past 11 years and I have had parents in my class who needed a little extra comforting to know that their baby was going to be okay. I never REALLY understood how hard it can be to let go. Well, I have been learning.
Riley has never been in preschool, so I was really scared about how he was going to do emotionally and socially. Jamma and Aunt Becca took him to school the first day to take pictures and video tape the entire event, because I had to miss it. Well...things went okay. He didn't and STILL HASN'T said "Good afternoon" to his teacher, which we are struggling to get him to do right now...but overall, he did okay that first day. He waved and blew kisses all the way into the school.
Well, after school he talked about everything he did and how much fun he had. Good sign, right??? We thought so, until about 2 am in the morning when he woke up crying saying that his cheeks hurt. He complained about his head hurting and about how it felt like everything was BREAKING inside his body. For 2 1/2 hours I tried to comfort him. Finally he started screaming, "I don't want to go back to that school ever again!!! I want to stay home." I tried to reason with him and tell him that he needed to go to school to learn, but he reasoned right back with me. His response was, "You are a teacher! You can teach me! You can teach me things at home! You can read me books." I then asked who would teach my class? His response was that they could go to other classrooms. At around 5 we got him back to sleep. We thought that in the morning we could talk through this. Well, he seemed fine, but was complaining again that his cheeks hurt and that sick kids need to stay home. He then threw up. We thought that maybe he was having an anxiety attack and threw up because of that. After calling the school, they told us that he NEEDED to stay home. So here we are, the second day of kindergarten, our child has ruined his perfect attendance record. Oh well. We thought that he was so panicked and had so much anxiety because of all the people (aunts, grandparents, us) who were asking how it went. On Friday he went to school and everything was fine. Same for Monday. Then our lives spiraled into complete chaos. On Monday night/Tuesday morning, Riley ended up with croup really bad. Oh and on a side note, Becca called on Monday to tell me that Aiden had a high fever...103.5. So, I left school early to get him. So back to Monday night/Tuesday morning, Riley had croup. We have dealt with this before, but it has never been this bad. His face looked really gray and he was struggling with breathing. SO...it was a trip to the ER for him. He was there for a while and got a steriod. My dad came and stayed with Aiden since he had a high fever, and I had to go to school because it was only the 5th day of school and I had NO LESSON plans ready. Aiden ended up getting croup as well. So on Wednesday, I stayed home with them and brought them to the doctor. Thursday I had to take Aiden back to the doctor and Riley went back to school. Things went great.
He is enjoying school but will not say. "Good afternoon" to his teacher. He practices it at home, asked us to write it down for him, but gets scared that he is going to get it wrong when he gets to school. He WILL NOT SAY IT! We have tried to bribe him but it isn't working. He asked if we were going to be mad at him if he got scared and didn't say it. So...right now, I am not pushing the issue as much. We are encouraging him to say it...and he knows he gets something when he finally does...
The final issue that we are dealing with is riding the bus. He likes going on the bus TO school because he is with only kindergarten kids. He does not like coming home on the bus! He says the 5th graders swear a lot and it is really loud. He says that there is a lot of yelling...and he doesn't want to go on the bus home. So, now we are trying to figure out what to do. We've only had 3 weeks of school and so many things to try to figure out already! Wonder what the rest of the school year is going to bring us? I never thought that parenting was going to be so challenging! Riley loves school and absolutely loves his teacher! I just hope that he will open up and not be so worried about doing things wrong!
