So we took the leap!! A week ago, I blogged about potentially putting Mason into school. He headed off for his second day today. Right now, he’s in school 2 days a week (Tuesday and Thursday) for 3 hours in the mornings.
Last week, we decided to go out for breakfast and ended up next to a daycare center. I called them and asked if we could swing by. On our tour, Mason walked right into the classroom and sat down and started playing with the kids. When we left, he threw a tantrum and screamed the entire ride back home that he wanted to “go back there daddy!!!!” We took that as a good sign, and enrolled him later that afternoon.
On Thursday, his first day of school he was pumped. We made a big deal about how big he was and his new backpack (which is secretly old but I put in a closet for a bit so he’d forget about it), and how he was going to get the chance to play with lots of kids and on the playground. We pulled into the parking lot and he squealed with delight “YAY!!!!!! We came back to this place! My school!!!” We walked into the building and he walked into his classroom like he owned the place leaving A and I behind. Things couldn’t have been going better. I walked down to the office to drop off his paperwork, and A started panicking as only a Daddy leaving his child for the first time can. “What if he thinks we abandoned him? I need to go back and say goodbye and let him know we’ll be back to pick him up.” The center director and I rolled our eyes at each other, knowing where this was going, but A walked back into the classroom anyway. Which is when things went MAJORLY south. Mason started crying and clinging to A. He screamed for us not to leave him. A felt awful, and I felt like the meanest mom ever standing there refusing to hold my baby boy and telling his Daddy we needed to leave him here. The teacher literally had to pry Mason out of A’s arms and we left to the tune of Mason’s screams and the image of our sweet boy reaching for us.
About an hour into his time there, the teachers texted A a picture of a very cheerful Mason playing on the playground. Both my boys had big smiles. When we picked Mason up, it was like we were picking up another child. He was sitting in a circle with all the other kids, quiet, content, and following directions. Even when he saw us, he didn’t come running – he waited for the teacher to call his name and then he hopped up and came running to us. It was incredible. The teachers said he did a great job, and Mason told us all about his day on our way out to a celebratory McDonald’s lunch. We quickly realized we should be documenting this, and waited until we were all seated with lunch to continue the conversation. Of course, once the camera was out, all Mason wanted to talk about was the negative – how he cried at school. I guess the shining moment is that he does say he’d like to go back.
Today, we headed back for his second day of school. This morning, when he woke up I said “YAY we get to go to school!” Mason replied by saying “no. Me stay here. Me no like school.” So I dropped it. The moment we pulled into the parking lot, Mason started fussing. We walked into his classroom and the teacher had to pull a screaming toddler off me while I tried to release myself from his grasp. He was holding me so tightly, and just kept screaming “no mama me come with you!” It was one of the harder things I’ve ever done, but I know he’ll be fine and eventually won’t even fuss a little during drop off.
School is good for him. It’s even better for me. I’m getting a business up and running, and I actually have time to spend working on things for my clients. Audrey gets some time to play with whatever toys she wants without her brother snatching them out of her hands or pushing her over. School is good. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
You can do this mommy. Day two is the way it is supposed to happen for the first few days. How was daddy this time?