tony's first week at kindercare

the majority of our week since returning from knoebel's has been an adjustment. tony began his 5-day care at kindercare learning centers on monday. although the drop off on monday went better than anticipated, no one could have imagined how the rest of the week would unfold.

by day 4, tony was a complete mess and i was probably at my all time lowest moment since becoming a mama. here is an outline of our morning that day:

4 a.m. - i woke up to find that a small boy had crawled into bed and was now "settling" in between john and i making sure he was covered by the covers, sippy cup in hand, b in mouth. i’m up now (and will be for several hours – and it appears my minor sore throat and stuffy nose is now a full-blown cold – will the fun ever end?)

5 a.m. – gather a tony (deadweight) and return him to his bed only for him to wake up when his head hits his pillow and proceed to scream/cry. begging/pleading for him to stay in bed ensues, but to no avail…

5:45 a.m. – return to my bed, tony in tow. he settles back in and is out like a light in 5 minutes…i on the other hand am not.

6:10 a.m. – i appear to finally be asleep…woops, there’s john’s alarm…i drift in and out of sleep from now until john leaves and i get up.

6:50 a.m. – john walks out the front door. tony hears it shut and cries instantly while running down the stairs to the couch in time to see john’s truck leave…i try to comfort him but get an “i don’t like you, i want my daddy” in response. nice.

7:00 – 7:10 a.m. – settle tony back in my bed with a waffle, juice and mickey mouse on tv (he’s still crying)…turn to walk toward the bathroom, and i now have a small boy who decides to sit on the toilet while i shower instead of eat breakfast…crying the whole time. i try to talk to him and comfort him talking about what we’re going to do this weekend…by i get an “i want daddy, i hate you” instead…real nice. i guess i should look at that as a plus, since that must be a new word he learned at school this week, cuz he never heard that from john, myself, michelle or any family member of ours.

7:11-7:37 a.m. – get myself ready for work…he’s on the bed crying the whole time…hasn’t touched his waffle…mickey has now been replaced with good morning america (he wasn’t watching mmc anyway).

7:38 a.m. – 7:46 a.m. – begin to get tony dressed while battling the same tears from the morning already, but now mixed with screams and kicking legs. i get my 3rd and final, “i don’t like you, i want my daddy”. i lose it, and now both of us are crying.

7:47 a.m. – drag a crying and kicking tony d to my car (i’m sure the neighbors loved that wake up call). he cries the entire way to school.

7:59 a.m. – arrive at school to a little boy making himself so stiff in the car seat i could barely get him out of it. he screamed and cried the whole way to his room. i sat down for a few minutes with him to set up his waffle and spend a little time with him, but he never settled. as much as i hated to do it, i just left. i knew if i got him settled he would only start back up again as soon as i left.

needless to say i was up that morning since 4 with only 25 minutes of solid sleep and 40 minutes of drifting sleep in between. i was tired, depressed, my throat hurt and i couldn't breathe...all i wanted to do was pick up my baby, go home, crawl in bed and just snuggle with him the rest of the day.

i can report now that friday went better and over the weekend he started talking a little more about his teachers and new friends.

the best part of his first week at school so far was that by thursday he was telling us he had to pee on the potty and by friday night (***tmi alert***) he told us he had to poopie. he has been doing this consistently through the weekend, even during harry's birthday party on saturday and church on sunday. guess you could consider this our silver lining of the bad week!

i hope to get a picture of him outside of school this week (it will be have to do for the "first day of school" picture)...last week didn't really provide too many photo ops that wouldn't have caught tony trying to run for the hills instead of posing.