Monday, November 16, 2009

"Take a little piece of my heart now baby...."

Wasn't it Janis Joplin who sang, "Take it! Take another little piece of heart now baby. Break it! Break another little piece of my heart why don't ya' "....

Children have a way of doing that so quickly. My three-year-old is my most vocal child. He has never hesitated to let the world know how he feels. Just ask our neighbors. He's outgoing, loves to play with (mostly boss around) other kids so I really thought pre-school would be a hit. It's not. He throws a fit, every time.

It's not like he goes everyday. He goes two days a week for maybe 2 1/2 hours and his class is pretty small, there are maybe 10 in the class with two teachers. The teachers always assure me that he is perfectly fine after I leave but he's been ramping up the drama each time I drop him off.

Today was the worst. Last week he was out due to a fever so it has been 10 days since he was there. I thought he was ready to go back, he had even asked to go on Saturday. But today when the time came he through himself down on the floor and had a fit. I ended up dragging him to the car without shoes or a coat on. Held him down to get him buckled and drove all the way there with him screaming, kicking, and thrashing. I was exhausted by the time we got there.

All the way there in the car he was working this hard. I have to hand it to the kid, he's learned the art of mommy manipulation. His line is, "Can we just talk about this?" Of course I say, what is it you don't like about pre-school? "Pull over and let me out of the car and I will tell you." Not happening Jack! I can just see him bolting from the car and belting out a sinister laugh, "You can't caught me now!"

I scoop him up and head into the pre-school. He was not letting go. He had his arms and legs wrapped around me like a spider monkey. His head is buried in my shoulder. He won't look at or talk to the teachers. So I take him over to the corner of the room where they have a puppet stage set up and tried to put on a puppet show. Thinking I am terribly clever I try to play this scene out with puppets but he takes them off my hands and says, "Stop it. Take me home." A little boy in his class was really enjoying my show and keeps trying to open up the curtain to see more. Until my son yelled at him and threw one of the puppets at his head, I intercepted quickly so the teacher wouldn't see, I didn't want to get in trouble!

They finally pulled him off of me and I left, but I got to the car and started to cry. What am I doing? What if he's really not ready? What if he's really scared? What if he cries until he throws up or pees his pants? I finally left the parking lot and went to volunteer at the elementary school checking my cell phone every two minutes.

When I got there to pick him up, he was absolutely fine. I said how was school? "Good. I stopped crying and calmed down. I got a job today. I was flag holder!" I'm glad he was fine but, I just lost another little piece of my heart - I know I did.

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