Here he is on day one, excited to go but camera-shy, which is a trend that started right before our trip to Escondido, conveniently right before our first shot at professional family photos. I've yet to see how those turned out! But despite not wanting to photographically document this big day, Eli did really well...at preschool. Other than not napping (again, no surprise there), his teachers all told us how well he was doing on days two, three, four, etc. No drop-off drama, no disciplinary issues, no fighting or any weird aggressive behavior. But when we got him home it was - and continues to be - an entirely different story. He stalled when we came to pick him up, started tantruming like never before, and just generally made the precious few hours between the end of his day at school and bedtime, well, extra challenging, to put it mildly. The couple of weekends since he started have been pretty good and all his daycare buddies (three others transitioned to preschool at the same time, and to different schools, I might add) have experienced some form of their own rough transition so hopefully we can feel somewhat confident that this is all preschool's fault (and not that the "terrible twos" have been replaced by the "tantrum threes"...no, no, I'm sure it's not that).
Most have had a hard time at drop-off, in addition to being more difficult at night, so at least we don't have to deal with both (knock on wood). All of them seem to be letting loose and pushing all sorts of extra buttons at home.
On top of all this, Eli's sleep totally fell apart, waking up three or four times some nights, waking up early to go #2, a couple of times waking up because his pull-up had experienced a little leakage and he essentially wet the bed. In case you've never experienced it, let me tell you, changing the sheets (especially on the kind of bed he has) at 4 a.m. is no fun. I'm pretty sure he is in a vicious fighting fatigue kind of cycle - getting thoroughly exhausted at school with no napping whatsoever, yet getting to bed a little late because of all of the evening button-pushing, etc.
Did you know Dr. Seuss wrote a book called the Sleep Book? Do you think there's any chance it'll help our situation? Doubtful. But in an effort to encourage napping at school, we've started a sticker chart. We're so bad at these things (sticker chart, 1-2-3 magic, you name it, it never works) as we've already given in to what was supposed to be the punishment/reward (a nap one day meant he could watch his morning show the next...turns out that affects us just as much as it affects him, nor did it seem to work anyway), and have yet to figure out what the stickers will get him, if anything. When I asked him what kind of reward he might want for getting so many stickers by the end of the week, he replied, "stickers." Hmm. Either he's really easy to please or neither of us gets how this sticker chart idea works!
On a positive note, again, Elias has been doing really well at preschool during the day, so no complaints there. And so far, I love the school. I love the four teachers and how different and yet complimentary they all are to one another. I love that Elias gets to play outside for several hours a day in a truly beautiful setting, with a play structure, and a huge sandbox and a bike trail. I love that after just two weeks of practicing on the trikes at school, he can now peddle his own tricycle, something he'd struggled with since receiving it as a gift for his 2nd birthday (hence, to some degree, his balance bike for year 3). I love the little snippets of songs I don't know that I hear him singing, certain he's picking them up from circle time. I love the other kids and how ridiculously adorable the 3 to 5 set is.
Not surprisingly, Elias is drawn both to older kids and girls, generally speaking, which is a little frustrating to watch because the older kids don't seem to be as excited to play with the new, younger kids and the girl cliques apparently start around age 4 (yikes). But just this morning when I dropped him off a couple of kids yelled out, "there's Eli!" and one other little boy (the other kid who continues to not nap) named Matthew said, "Good morning, Eli." Eli played shy but it really warmed my heart to see that he is making new buddies, especially being suddenly separated from his daycare friends that he'd grown so close to over the last year or so. Which leads me to my final, and perhaps most obvious point: preschool has been a pretty rough transition for me, as well. And I'm not just talking about the tantrums and the night-waking and the 4 a.m. potty calls. I was excited for the change and I still am but I underestimated how hard it would be to watch him enter such a new social world, with so many more kids to become new friends (or not), and older kids who, at 4, are so different than the three-year-olds. Since his best friend from daycare is a girl, I didn't anticipate that the girls and boys seem to play separately already, at least when I'm there. I didn't realize I'd worry so much about how he was getting along, whether or not he'd participate in the mostly optional (especially at this less structured program) art projects in the morning or forever play by himself, and whether or not we'd made the right choice sending him to a school where he has so much freedom to choose how to spend his time. And I guess this is just the beginning of all that, isn't it?
Anyway, as with any transition, at the end of the day sometimes you just have to weather the storm. And cherish the positive (and downright nutty) moments in between. Here's a video of Elias that Neal captured last night, after a rough night, a busy day, no nap, and a late dinner:
How can I be frustrated with such a goofball, right?
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