Change Stinks

Now that Mason is two years old, he is old enough to attend preschool at our YMCA Children's Center. This is something I have been looking forward to for a long time. My child gets to finally start participating in YMCA activities. This is exciting on many levels. One is that I have a child that can grow up in the Y and enjoy all of the great programs that we offer. Another is, he will be attending a school that is only a few miles from where my office is located which is convenient if I needed to get to him quickly one day! And another is...that he can attend our program for FREE!! Yep, that's right FREE. As of now, I no longer have a monthly preschool payment to pay. One of our employee benefits is our children are allowed to participate in our programs for at no charge to the employee. Huge benefit that I am extremely thankful for! While all of these reasons are great and I have been looking forward to all of them, a few weeks ago I found myself getting really worked up about him have to move to a new place. I had so many thoughts running through my head. Things like, how am I going to do drop off and pick up everyday? What will I do with him on teacher workdays? How will my staff feel about him being there? How will he adjust? Will he like it? Will he cry and be sad? On and on and on. Everyone kept telling me things would work out and that I was stressing over it too much. For those that know me well, know this is how I am. I have a tendancy to over analyze everything. Let me fill you in on how the past two weeks have been for us.

Well, the first two days were transition visits so he could only be there a couple of hours. Those two days were a breeze. He went right in and joined the class like he had been there before. I was excited that this change might now be a big deal at all. His teachers were impressed with him and said he is going to do just fine. Our first full day was on a Monday. He had a doctor's appointment that morning so we didn't get there until 11:00am. We walked in and he immediately asked to be held. I picked him up and told him it was going to be alright. He held on tight while I talked to his new teacher, Mr. Greg, for a few minutes. When it was time to go, I handed him to Mr. Greg and the screaming and tears instantly started. I continued to walk out of the classroom and could hear him all the way down the hallway. I waited a few minutes to see if he would calm down and he did not so I waited a little longer and he started to settle. I proceeded to leave the building when I heard screaming again and this time it was, mommy come back! Mommmmmyyyyyyy! I kept walking and could hear him outside and it BROKE my heart. I left in tears and continued on to work. About 10 minutes after I left, I got a text message from Mr. Greg telling me Mason had calmed down and was OK. I was ok by this time too so we were all good. Day 2 went about like day 1 so needless to say all my fears seemed to be coming true about this whole change!

Day 3 and 4 progressively got worse. Day 3 he started crying as soon as well pulled into the center parking lot. Day 4, he started crying as soon as I put him in his car seat to leave the house. He seemed to be really sad and very clingy and at night started to wake up during the night and very early in the morning screaming, "mommy come back!" It was breaking my heart and I felt so guilty for putting him through all of this. Day 5 was very similar to the others but now we had the weekend to spend some extra time together. Great you say. It was great but he started to TEST every thing possible and was being a little turkey! We use re-direction as much as possible with him but after so many times and that not working, I had to move to time outs. I even had to "pop" him on his bottom (well, diaper) a couple of times throughout the weekend to get him to listen. It was a complete 360 for him. I feared the terrible two's were in full force now.

We made it through the weekend which was exhausting because he was in to everything and woke up before 6:00am both days. Now it is on to week two of a new preschool. The crying and screaming continued during drop off but when I picked him in the afternoons he was playing and didn't immediately run to me. Mr. Greg continued to text me to reassure me he was calming down quickly and was ok. He also sent me a picture showing me he was starting to play with the other children.


Fast forward to day 3 of the second week and he walked right in his classroom and started playing in the sensory table which was full of dried oats and farm animals. I was a bit surprised but went with the flow and tried to leave in a hurry. Mr. Greg called me back for a second and Mason turned around and ran to me and started crying. I told him it would be alright and put him down and left. He screamed for a few minutes and that was it. I saw a few of the other teachers as I was leaving and they all told me he was doing great. I told them that I knew he was but it was still hard leaving him like that. I know it gets better and this is all normal but it has been emotionally draining having to have him crying and screaming when I leave. Below are a few more pictures showing that he does fine after I leave.





Today is Friday and there was a teacher workday today so no school for Mason which meant no work for mommy so we are spending the day together and will hopefully have a great weekend.

After two weeks at his new school, we have noticed that he has been singing new songs in the evenings when he would be playing. He even started saying his ABC's and counting to 10!! He must be getting something out of his day even if he does appear miserable and sad in the mornings. I know he was ready for more structure and being around children that are his age or older. I hope the crying stops and he gets back to his happy, go lucky self when I drop him off in the mornings. I miss my happy little boy and I am not ready for the terrible two's! Here's hoping week three continues to get better.

Until next time......