The last couple weeks have truly been an adjustment period in our family. Cayden went to school wonderfully the first week...but then on Monday of the second week he missed the bus in the morning which I think set his schedule all off. Eric then tried to drop him off to school on his way to work & basically had to pry Cayden off of his leg & force him crying hysterically into the classroom. Thankfully all of the kids were still outside on the playground and didn't see all of this. This actually happened the rest of the week in the morning...lots of big, crocodile tears and saying he didn't want to go to school. Then I started getting calls from his teacher in the afternoon saying he was crying and didn't want to get on the bus to ride home.
Since Cayden is a typical boy and therefore we have to really, really try hard to pry information from him...it took us awhile to get to the actual problem. We wondered...is he not making friends at school, are there mean kids on the bus, we thought of just about everything. The only answer we ever got out of him was that he just missed Mommy. But the Mom in me just had to have a more concrete answer than that!!! :)
After lots of conversations with Cayden and also with his wonderful teacher...we finally came to the conclusion that he was just having trouble adjusting to being at school all day long...from 7:45am until 4pm when he arrived home. He missed being at home with me and missed having down time at home to not think. Eric talked with Cayden before bed one night and asked him if it would help to take a picture of Mommy to school with him. Cayden responded "Dad, that's just wierd!" But the more Eric talked with him about it the more Cayden liked the idea. So late that night Eric had to scour the house for a picture of me for Cayden to take to school. When he got off the bus that day he seemed happier...and said he kept my picture in his pocket so he could look at it when he missed me...but that sometimes he would get tears when he looked at it.
I also said that if he didn't cry in the morning I would pick him up from school and he wouldn't have to ride the bus for a little while. He shocked me with saying "no, Mom, that's okay, I don't mind riding the bus". Okay buddy...I'm clueless!!! :) We did agree that once a week I would surprise him in the afternoon by picking him up in the afternoon...and he wouldn't know which day. I've done that twice so far and he gets so excited when he sees me at the end of the day!!
So...it's almost the end of another week of school and we made it almost 2 full weeks without any tears!!! He gets right on the bus in the morning and comes off the bus at the end of the day with lots of smiles!!! I am sooo very thankful!! In fact, last friday he came home and asked what day it is tomorrow. I told him it was Saturday and that he didn't have any school. He responded "Awww man" really disapointed that he couldn't go to school! I think this boy is going to keep us guessing right up into the teenage years and beyond!!!!
I'm so proud of you big boy!!!
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