Lessons for Mom on first day of preschool
My youngest child started preschool yesterday, and Mom was the one who learned the lesson. The drop-off was traumatic, even though he moved from one room up to the next — the oldest — in the same daycare center that he has attended all year.
But I made a big deal about it, just like I did when my older two started preschool. Then, I was a stay-at-home mom so the transition from home to school seemed big. Now, I’m a working mom, and the transition in childcare to pre-K simply means changing rooms and teachers with all your friends.
But wherever life takes you, I still believe preschool is a big deal, an exciting time, a time that marks the formal start of what hopefully will be a lifelong desire to learn. It’s monumental, major, a milestone, amazing and all that. The first day of preschool deserves special attention, a photograph and as much fuss as my older two got for the start of their elementary school grades this week.
I learned yesterday that piling on all those hopes and dreams is too much pressure for a 4-year-old.
He cried and cried and hugged and hugged me during drop-off as he felt the full weight of all that pressure and those expectations. While he usually marches in smiling, greets his friends and disappears with them onto the playground, on the drive to school that “first” day he hid himself underneath his favorite green blanket, known affectionately as “Green.”
On the long prison walk down the hall to his new classroom, he sucked his thumb – usually an act reserved only for naps and bedtime – clutching “Green” as if it were his only friend.
He had been a little unsettled all week.
If I had just gotten him up and said “Yea! You’re starting preschool today!” he would have been fine as I took a picture in his class.
Instead his first-day-of-preschool picture in the classroom doorway shows him holding onto “Green” for dear life, wadded up in his arms as he hid his worried face partially behind it. Getting ready to launch his lifetime love of learning.
By the time I picked him up, he was smiling and having a great time as he took me on a tour of his classroom and chatted about his friends and about what he did that day. He skipped into his classroom today with a smile and a quick hug.
The pressure is off – preschool is back to being just a normal part of everyday life.
Yesterday’s milestone, I realized, only belonged to me as my youngest one grows up.
~ Lillie-Beth Brinkman
The Lessons Start Early
First day of school Lesson No. 1:
Be mindful where you park. In the rush of parents walking their children into school this morning, my car was blocked by another vehicle. Thanks to the kind dad that helped me maneuver out of the tight spot!
Lesson No. 2: No photos please! My daughter was not at all interested in having her picture taken. How will I scrapbook this momentous day? I’ll try again tomorrow.
Lesson No. 3: Don’t forget the ice pack in the sack lunch. I did and then had to remove an item that needed to be kept cool. Luckily that still left a cookie and a peanut butter sandwich (crusts removed.)
Lesson No. 4: Take a deep breath. Smile big when you wave goodbye. Don’t cry until you get to the car. You’ll be stuck there for a while anyway.
Susan Simpson, Mom of a KINDERGARTENER! (Can you believe it?)
First day of school hardest — for Mom
I will not cry. I will not cry.
Who am I kidding? I’m gonna cry.
This is a week of goodbyes and new beginnings. Today is my daughter’s last day at the daycare she’s attended since she was five months old.
She started in the baby room at one end of the building and has moved up through every classroom, now finishing a year in pre-kindergarten.
Her teachers have advised me (how to get a breastfeeding baby to take a bottle), admonished me (where did Adi learn that “bad” word?), and helped me adjust to all the wonderful and bewildering changes of a child growing, learning and loving.
I don’t know Adi’s new teacher yet. I meet her today. I’m sure she will be wonderful and kind and enthusiastic.
I hope she won’t wonder why there are tears in my eyes. They are happy tears. My baby is growing up.
Susan Simpson, Education Writer
A moment of mortification
I really need some help with a very awkward and embarrassing situation I experienced over the weekend.
My son is in a class at the zoo. It meets once a month, and it is specific to his age. All the children in the class are 2 years old. The class is terrific and I highly recommend it to anyone. They have different age groups so any child can sign up. The cost is $10-$12 per class. In his class, they do learning activities, look at exhibits, do crafts and read stories.
On Saturday, we were in the craft portion of the class. All the kids sit at tables and the parents are right there with them. My son takes a spot next to a little blond girl. I didn’t notice at first, but she apparently suffers from a skin disorder, maybe psoriasis or something along those lines. Her skin was red and blotchy and looked to be peeling. But I didn’t think twice about it and so we started working on the craft.
About 5 minutes into it, my son looks over at her, points to her arm and lets out a huge “EWWWWW!!!” complete with scrunched-up nose and big grin. I think my heart stopped. I could feel her parents’ eyes on me and I immediately turned red. I was mortified. I didn’t know what to do. I went on instinct and tried to cover as best as I could by saying “yes, Hunter, ewww, you got glue on your hands!”
What do we do in a situation like that? I couldn’t punish him – after all, he is only two. If I tried to talk to him about it afterward, he would have long forgotten about what I was even referring to.
Please, fellow parents, tell me how you would handle that and if you have had a similar situation happen to you. I really need some advice on this because I have a sneaky suspicion this won’t be the last time!
~Erica Smith
Wake Up!
For many families, Back to School time means a change in schedules. But getting everyone up and ready in the morning doesn’t have to be stressful. Here are a few tips from http://family.go.com/
Cut out caffeine during the day.
Too much caffeine can wire kids up and make it difficult for them to drift off to sleep at night. As a result, they are tired and cranky when the alarm goes off in the morning.
Keep your routine as consistent as possible — even on the weekends.
While it’s fine to let them catch up on a little sleep, it’s not smart to let them sleep their Saturdays and Sundays away. If you do, they’re going to have a hard time adjusting back on Monday morning.
If your child normally gets up at 7 a.m. on a weekday, don’t let her sleep any later than 8 or 8:30 on the weekend.
Don’t expect a young child to be able to use an alarm clock.
Most experts say that alarm clocks aren’t really useful until a child is around 12 years old or in the sixth grade. Before that, you’ll need to go in and get them up. (And, unfortunately, even after age 12 you still may need to go in and make sure they get up after their alarm clock rings.)
Use the night before to get organized.
Pack the backpack, set out the bowls and spoons for breakfast, and pick out the clothes your child will wear. Remember, the less surprises you have to deal with in the morning, the less hectic it’ll be for everyone.
What tips do you have?
Susan Simpson, Education Writer
High school highs … no lows
This is my mantra and I’m sticking to it: We will have positive experiences in high school.
I’ve got to sing that to the rafters because my daughter, who will be a freshman come Wednesday, is bound and determined that in high school she will:
A: Be consistently late to class because she has too far to walk between classrooms.
B. Not be able to have lunch with any of her friends because they will all be on a different lunch schedule (it is, of course, a conspiracy theory against her circle of friends even though none of them know as yet which lunch period they will have).
C. Not be able to complete all of her assignments and will be a freshman again next year.
D. All of the above, rolled into one drama-filled monologue that gets louder and louder as the first day of school draws near.
I can afford to be positive because these are the same scenarios she conjured up right before middle school. None of it happened and I know it won’t this time, either.
So I say three cheers for the beginning of her first year of high school and the end of the back-to-school jitters.
Say a prayer for me, please!
Carla
Morning goodness
If you have a toddler who is as picky as mine, I have a good morning solution for you.
For months, my 2-year-old son would eat a banana and drink a glass of milk every morning. Very nutritious and easy. But as time went by, my son stopped wanting bananas and if he did eat one, it was only because I asked him about 20 times to do it. It was becoming too much of a struggle.
So I found the perfect solution. A smoothie! One that is super-nutritious and packs him full of the good stuff like fruit, dairy, antioxidants and vitamins. It’s so easy to make, I thought I’d share it with you. Here’s all you need:
1 Banana
1/2 cup frozen berries or strawberries (just buy a big bag and keep it on hand)
1/2 cup low-fat vanilla yogurt
1/4 cup cranberry-pomegranate juice (the 100% juice kind – not the cocktail kind)
1/2 cup ice (I just buy a huge cup of Sonic ice and keep it in my freezer. So easy to blend and it’s only about 40 cents for a large).
Blend and there you go! It’s all you need for a serving for a hungry toddler. If you’d like to enjoy one too, just double everything except the banana.
Guaranteed, they’ll love it and they are getting all the nutrion one breakfast can give.
Do you have any toddler-tested recipes? If so, I’d love to hear about them and I bet other moms would, too!
~Erica Smith
esmith@oklahoman.com
Too early for ‘Mom’
My 2-year-old son has a new word in his vocabulary: Mom.
I was surprised at first, since I started as “Mama” and have been “Mommy” ever since he was about 9 months old. ‘Mom’ sounded kind of … well … weird to me and I’m not sure I like it.
I always pictured being “Mommy” until he was in about 6th grade or at least until he started worrying about what his friends thought. But at 2? It’s too early. Especially for me.
I know he’s probably just trying out something new and he probably got the idea from that Kenmore refrigerator commercial where all the kids are yelling “Mom! Mom?” that seems to be on all the time. But it makes me a bit sad, like things are going way too fast.
When did your kids start calling you Mom (or Dad) and did it hurt … just a little?
Let me know here or email esmith@oklahoman.com.
I’d love to know I’m not alone on this!
-Erica Smith
Great family film gives another first
We experienced a big first in my household. My 2-year-old son’s first movie in a movie theater.
At first, I was a bit hesitant … I mean it’s a lot of money to spend and if he starts getting fussy, we’re out $18 plus popcorn. But I have to admit, I really wanted to see WALL-E and I got my son excited enough to want to see it, too.
We wheeled his stroller in, so he could still feast on his food court fare while watching. Not the best idea, however, as the only place to sit him was in wheelchair-access seats, which are five rows from the screen.
As we started watching the “big TV” my son stuck out his bottom lip as far as it would go and said (while in a moment of movie silence) “Scared! Big TV scared!” Luckily we picked a showtime where only six other people were in the theater, so it worked out well. The initial loud noises (there’s a spacecraft that lands on Earth) did get him a bit nervous, but all in all, he loved it. And I loved seeing him watch his first movie.
WALL-E was indeed a great film, another genius work by PIXAR. I highly recommend it and it was worth every penny. It’s filled with love, humor, friendship and even a bit of reality. You can’t help but tear up and laugh out loud at the same time. This is truly a film that all ages can enjoy and want to see again and again.
And as soon as we got home, my little boy wanted to watch it again on our not-as-big-TV and of course he didn’t understand why that wasn’t possible. So he had to settle for some OETA and fell asleep with his new best friend in hand.
~Erica Smith
Don’t lose time making memories
Anyone who knows me know that I am a picture-taking fanatic. I always have my camcorder and digital camera with me wherever my son and I go. I take a bunch of pictures, upload them to my computer, then transfer a copy to my online photo albums to share them.
So I end up with a copy on my camera (which I am always afraid to erase for some reason), a copy on my computer, a copy online, a backup copy on CD and then eventually I order prints of all of them and if they’re lucky, someday they might make it into an actual photo album.
Does this sound a bit obsessive-compulsive to you? It does to me. But how do I break this habit? I always feel a tinge of guilt if a weekend goes by and I never get to organizing all those hundreds of photos, putting dates on them, putting them in albums. Then buying more albums. Then buying things to scrapbook with, but never getting around to doing it.
If I take less pictures, I may miss out on something remarkable and kick myself later. But if I’m constantly behind the lens of a camera, I feel I’m missing out on the actual experience. Which of the evils is worse?
After a good bout of guilt over a under-productive picture-sorting weekend, I always think to myself ”if I had spent all those hours organizing pictures all weekend, I would have missed out on capturing new memories.” So the guilt subsides, but the pictures multiply.
It’s a neverending dilemma.
Any suggestions? I would love to hear some.
-Erica Smith
