Day Four... Solo

Tuesday
How can it be only 1pm? It feels like an entire day has gone by already. New mattress delivered at 7:15am. Both kids already up by then. Z started his new preschool. Drop off was fine. Pick up was a nightmare.

All of the other kids are full-day kids so they stay for lunch and the rest of the afternoon. Z was very upset that he wasn't staying for lunch. Massive, code-red, full blown tantrum. Z screams, yells, cries, runs off along the side of the school (which is by a major street). Spankings. The drag-by-the-arm routine. Somehow I manage to remain calm in a kind of out-of-body sort of way where I'm seeing this all happen from a fluffy cloud above. More spankings. The physically-restrain-while-forcing-into-car routine. Z screams the whole way home. A flying shoe hits my arm. I am silent. I am a strong, unperterbable fortress of self control.

I leave the car on in the driveway with Z still strapped in while I carry my things inside. I ask the babysitter to take Harper outside so I don't have to manage her while handling Z's tantrum. I unstrap the monster, I mean, Z and tell him to go inside to his room. He can come out when he is calm and we will talk. He doesn't want to get out of the car so I walk away leaving both doors open. Thankfully, he soon follows and comes inside. He goes to his room and slams the door a few times. I ignore it.

After a stroll outside with Harper and the babysitter, I come back inside. Z is calm. Hallelujah! We have a talk and I tell him his behavior is unacceptable. He is a completely different child than 15 minutes before. He says, "I'm sorry, Mama, for throwing a tantrum... at my new... preschool." I forgive him and give him a hug. We talk about how disappointed he was about not getting lunch. I think it was partly that he was hungry and he didn't get to eat what they were eating (which apparently looked really good to him) and partly that he was singled out, sitting on a bench while all the kids ate their lunches at the tables. Boy. Well, I know how to do things better next time: prepare him for the lunch thing, getting there right on time (I was 3 minutes late!) before lunch is served. Once again I hear that phrase I hate: "We've never had this happen..." They've seen lots of tantrums over getting dropped off for preschool but none involving a child not wanting to leave. Well, Z is certainly one in a million. And praise the Lord, he is a napping one in a million right now.