Jack: Preschool Days 3 & 4

Day 3 of preschool was hard for me, since it was also my first day of work. Stuart took Jack to school in the morning. I hated that I couldn't be there to help Jack with this transition. I was told he cried and screamed, but calmed down pretty soon. Luckily, everyone at my new job was wonderful. My boss isn't in AZ and was in meetings all day, so some of the local folks were showing me around and getting me acclimated. Around 1:30, the HR manager told me she knew it was a long day and I hadn't even had lunch yet, so I should just call it a day and go home. She said she knew I was worried about my little boy (yeah, I might have mentioned him a time or two...) She said they were all moms and understood and I should go home early. Although I am salaried, I didn't want to leave that early on my first day and went back to my office. She stopped by my office 10 minutes later and asked what I was still doing there and again told me to go home. I was so grateful and decided to do the rest of my work from home. I called Stuart and told him I would pick up Jack from preschool. Jack was thrilled. I was told he did cry for me a few times during the day, but they felt he would do better. As we were walking out the door to head home, he told me he liked school. Yes! However, as we were getting ready for bed, I asked him if he liked school and he said, "Yes....but, not really." Sheesh.

Day 4, I was planning to observe one of the clinics I support to get a better feel for their day to day work. After talking to the Operations Director, I found out she was going to be in the office early (it's a 24 hour clinic) so I made plans to go in at 6am...and I actually got in earlier. The plus side was the I could pick Jack up in the afternoon. The down side was that I had to leave the house before Jack woke up. This is a challenge because Jack only wants me to get him up in the morning. (Yes, we are lucky that Jack still doesn't get out of his bed in the middle of the night, or the morning, until we come and get him. No middle of the night surprise appearances in our room. It's nice.) But, even though Stuart will try to go get him in the morning, he refuses and demands mom. Stuart told me Jack cried for 30 minutes in the morning when he got up because I wasn't there. And, or course, Stuart had a challenge in taking him to school. Jack told Stuart, "I don't want to be 4 anymore...I want to be a little guy." Then, Jack told his dad he couldn't go to preschool because it was closed. He did his best to convince his dad of this. Stuart told him they would go check to see if it was closed. When they got to the school and went inside, no one was at the front desk and Jack said, "See, it's closed," and tried to leave. So again, tears ensued. Meanwhile, I am in a medical clinic, trying to pay attention, and feeling very anxious about Jack. Luckily, the director started sending me text message updates. She let me know that he stopped crying after 5 minutes and then was all smiles. She let me know when she caught him singing in the class. She even sent me a picture of him working with his teacher. Oh, I felt so much better. I had a nice talk with her and his teacher when I picked him up and felt so much better. In fact, it took a good 30 minutes to drag him out of the school because he didn't want to leave. We celebrated the end of the week by taking Jack to the Mellow Mushroom for dinner. He loves going to a restaurant and we never take him, so it was a nice treat.

We're still not sure about everything. We definitely love the school. We just know we might need to move him from the junior kindergarten class to the 3 day a week, half days, 4 year old class. Although, that will leave us with a day care scheduling nightmare, we will do that if it is better for Jack. So, we're going to give it another week before we make any decisions.