Not a Baby, But Not a Big Boy Quite Yet

My sweet big guy has been in kindergarten now for 2 and a half weeks, and it's going about like we expected. The work he is bringing home is excellent. He is writing up a storm, adding creative touches to his worksheets, and his neatness is improving by leaps and bounds. He is also loving the social side of school, as he attests that his favorite things about school are "playground and lunchroom." We're having a few behavioral struggles, though, and they are exactly the ones we expected. He is a bit too talkative, he has trouble following directions without reminders, and if something doesn't go the way he wants, he is prone to crying and tantrums. In talking with him and his teachers, it appears that the tantrums seem to occur more at the end of the day, when he is tired and ready to go home. I'm not surprised. Kindergarten is a huge transition for little kids. He is gone from home for almost 8 hours every day, and he's spending most of that time hard at work. We're working on the behaviors and he knows our expectations, but for these first couple of weeks, we have cut him a little slack.

Big guy has always been social and not very much of a homebody, but he has told me that the worst part of kindergarten is that he misses me. Each day the class has free-choice centers, when they are allowed to go to whichever center they like. He usually chooses drawing. Most days, he has brought home a sweet homemade card for me that he drew during this time. The one from yesterday said, "My Mom Rocks! Yay!" and inside, he wrote, "I love you Mom, you're the best." He said it helps him to draw when he misses me. It's helping me with this adjustment, too. I look at his sweet work on the refrigerator when he is gone during the day, and it makes me smile. He has grown up so much, but he is still my baby in so many ways. In many ways, he always will be!