This year was not met with the same excitement as kindergarten. In fact, Tommy was down right adamant that he was never going to leave home and never going back to school. He was clearly having trouble facing the fact that summer was coming to a close. The Friday before we made the trek up to the school for Open House, and quickly discovered he had been assigned to a totally new, totally different teacher. I had some inkling of the "teacher pile" he'd been put in at the end of the year, but clearly the workings of Principal Heritage had been hard at it shuffling Ms. Hubner's assessments around during the summer break. I was not at all pleased with this unknown teaching assignment, but after visiting Ms. Hubner down in her room for a quick hello, she assured me that she knew about it, that it had happened quickly, that it had been chaos with all the new teachers and that it would be okay. Really? It was a bit of comfort, but small, meager, too little for such a shock.
The walk up to school actually went pretty well, despite Tommy's misgivings about going. The weather was working for us in that it wasn't a beautiful day out for them to feel bad about missing the beach and inner tubing. We walked with the Cousins Pohlman, so that was fun to be with them. There was lots of encouragement for everyone on that walk up the hill. By the time Tommy was lining up outside his classroom, he was beginning to look scared. I could tell he was trying to pay attention, working to keep it together, but then he would look over at me and there was near panic in his eyes. Going into the class was even worse, as he clung to me, and had to have help putting his coat away and getting his stuff in order. He started to cry as he sat in his seat right up from, and nothing I said seemed to help. I had so much snot and tears on my face at one point I had to use my sleeve to get it all off. Finally, I bet down for one last hold and cuddle, loved on him with all I had in me, then peeled his little body off mine and walked away. He was crying as we all left. Thankfully, Georgia had come up with us and was wrangling Coop so we didn't have to worry about him. What a sad, sad morning to leave my sweet boy. It's not the way any mother wants to leave her child. It's so hard to fight the urge to make it all better and take him back home. It's hard not to paint yourself against the door and watch him all day to truly make sure he is okay. Georgia wouldn't be able to text me updates throughout the day about all the wonderful things he was doing. Six hours? Last year his longest day was 3 hours and 15 minutes on the few occasions he stayed for lunch. Six hours not knowing how my boy is?
When we went to pick him up he was all smiles and happy to report that he had liked the day. "It's too long, though," he said, walking home. "Why can't you just come pick me up at lunch?" Once home, it was off to find Johnny and back full steam with play, almost like the day was just a blip in his plan, a minor annoyance for his grand plans of legos, biking and beach. I could only hope tomorrow would be better for him, that it wouldn't be so hard, that there wouldn't be as many tears......
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