Love and communication

Our weekday mornings pretty much suck a bag of rocks. Every. Single. Day.

I cannot wait for Saturday for multiple reasons, but most of all, because it's just so much easier. We have no fights about getting dressed, no struggles to get out the door, no tantrums about staying hooooooome. 

Jordan does not not not want to go to school. His level of cooperation ranges from mildly whiny to flat out belligerent.

He's had a rough couple of months health-wise, and so he's been home a lot. Which only serves to make him want to be home more.

Last month we spent the better part of an afternoon and evening in the ER because his pediatrician was afraid he might have appendicitis.  He's had a number of ear infections. Monday night I got home and he had a fever of 104.4 degrees, so he was out school for a couple days.

And the fact is, he likes his teachers, and he's fine with the other kids, but he would just as soon never go back there again.

Jordan is one of the youngest in his class. He's a big kid, but he's such a little boy. He walks in sucking his thumb. He still cries at drop-off sometimes. It makes me so sad. It makes me think we started him too young.

But with DC offering pre-school, and him getting in to one we liked, it meant not paying approximately $1,600 in day care every month. Which is huge, you know?

I remind myself that his teachers like him, and so do the other kids in his class. His school is friendly, and the staff are kind. He's in his peer group - just younger by months.

And then in the morning, I try to remind myself that he's three and a half, that he's just a little kid. This is hard in the moment when he's making the morning miserable, when we're scrambling to get everyone out the door and he is so deliberately working against us.


As contrasted with India, who is also working against us, but mainly because, oh! Shoes! would be so much more fun in mouth than on feet! And such.

I  have a hard enough time hauling myself out of bed and looking somewhat presentable for the office. Just me. I need the added complication like I need a suit of chain mail.

Somehow we do manage to get out the door every morning. Rarely on time, rarely without some degree of drama trauma. But we all get to school, daycare, work. Eventually.

This morning Nick called on the way to work and said Jordan was fine. Once they left the house, Nick had kept him chatting, and all had gone smoothly with drop-off.

He still wasn't happy to be there, though.

Nick said, "I get it. I hated going to school when I was a kid. Every day, ever year. I hated it."

"I know; you've told me. And I bet you were just as big a dick about it every morning as he is."

Which is probably true. But never needs to be said out loud.