Caden Starts Preschool

DAY 1:

This was a big day for all of us...our little baby starting school for the first time. This was also really the first time Caden had been away from us with people outside of the family (other then a couple unsuccessful attempts at going to the church nursery). We were all nervous as to how this would actually go given the fact that Caden enjoyed all of his visits to the school but insisted for quite some time that he “would not go to school” and got upset every time we actually talked about it before the big day. After an exciting school shopping trip and several gifts from family and friends Caden was fully equipped with his Buzz Lightyear backpack, water bottle, snack box, lunch box & a big sack of other supplies he was ready.

The morning of he was excited to try everything out and pack his snack but he was still insisting that we couldn’t leave him there...we had to stay. Upon arrival at “the little red schoolhouse” as we call it he was excited, we took some video and he went straight in and started to play. So we thought we were off the hook...then we said “bye...have a good day” and all hell broke loose--literally. Caden lost it like we’ve never seen before. He was screaming, yelling, kicking and begging us not to go. It was horrible. The teacher was trying to hold him back as we left and that was a hard task as he was using all 30lbs of him to get away and screaming “don’t touch me, please don’t leave me, I want to go home.” Poor guy. Needless to say we all were in tears by this point, but we left and spent the next 2 1/2 hours nervously waiting by the phone for them to call and have us pick him up...but the call never came--he made it through.

When we went to pick him up he wasn’t crying but he wasn’t happy. He spent the entire 2 1/2 hours crying off and on but then had an actual conversation with the teacher and kids about one of his favorite subjects--water bottles. He was very happy to see us and said “I was crying for you to come back...it took you a really long time.” But nonetheless, he said he would go back and “try again, and try not to cry.”

DAY 2

Mom and Dad were even more nervous for this day given that anytime you brought up school between the two days Caden got upset and mostly focused on the fact that “he was crying for us, wanted us to come back and that he didn’t want to go to school.” We knew this transition would be hard though so we had to persevere and give it a good try. Mommy had to do it on her own this time so we brought in reinforcements (Yeah Grandma!) to take care of Molly so Mommy could take Caden without distractions & hopefully not two screaming kids. We decided bribery might be good too. So off to the donut shop we went before school to get one donut for before and one for after school. It didn’t work, he outsmarted me and said the 2nd one was for something else, cried most of the time we were at the donut shop and the drop off was just as hard. However, all in all the day went better. He ‘only’ cried for 1 1/2 hours and was...HAPPY & PLAYING when I picked him up!!!

After all the stress of the week of course Caden got sick...so sick that he missed his 3rd day of school. Hopefully we’ll make it next time and things will go better!

He Looks like a happy Preschooler...too bad that stopped when we got inside