My elder son started school this week. To say it's not going well is an understatement of epic proportions. One morning it took us nearly fifteen minutes to wrestle on his school uniform, every day there are tears from almost the moment he gets out of bed, and he even wakes in the night, crying.
For a millisecond yesterday, I almost thought home-schooling sounded attractive. That was when I realised I'd entered the madness of sleep deprivation. The other, more worrying sign of my looming insanity is a tendency to wander down to the vegetable garden, after dropping him at school, to visit his pumpkin.
A few weeks ago, the children and I wrote their names on some young pumpkins. As the scar heals and the pumpkins grow they can see their names getting larger and larger. At the time, I thought it was a good way to interest the kids in veg growing. Now I realise I was subconsciously creating a child substitute to see me through the difficult days of a new school term.
Yesterday I patted it gently and told it school would get easier. Then I realised I had just tried to comfort a large, orange, edible object and that perhaps I needed to, well... get a grip. And some sleep.
Oh dear - it will get better. My work colleague's little girl is also crying alot. Maybe a chat with the teacher to make sure everything is OK once he gets to school. My eldest just refused to go in - arms crossed and stubborn look. Only lasted about a week
Posted by: Helen | September 18, 2009 at 10:43 AM
Hi Helen - According to the teacher (and Oscar) his main issue seems to be with having to line up - which doesn't say much for his ability to respect authority...
I'm just holding onto the fact that each day has been very marginally less dreadful and that the whole thing might, one day, be less painful than extracting teeth.
Posted by: Dawn/LittleGreenFingers | September 18, 2009 at 11:45 AM
Hi, loved your post and child substitute thing, pumpkins have got to easier than real kids!, it does get easer honest! Jack is now so in love with school he'd rather be there than at home, that makes you feel bad too ;))
Posted by: Icklebabe_com | September 18, 2009 at 03:54 PM
Hi Icklebabe - Well this afternoon he has declared that school was 'actually quite fun', that he could 'probably go there for a few hundred days' and that 'I love school'. The ficklesness of youth!
Posted by: Dawn | September 18, 2009 at 04:26 PM
Glad to hear things are improving; it sounded absolutely awful for both of you, for a while there. I love the patting the pumpkin bit.
Re: gardening blogs; do you know "Momma's Gonna Lose It"? I don't track this genre a lot, but stumbled on that one and found it quite amusing AND well-written.
Good luck, and here's hoping you don't find yourself home-schooling by accident!
--Kate
Posted by: themanicgardener | September 18, 2009 at 10:40 PM
how wonderful to have something to go to and see his name, - my son is now in year one, and his problem is his button up shirt, - after a year we are now at the point when I only have to do one button, - by the time I get out in the garden each day I've done a whole days work!, but the fresh air helps.
Posted by: Claire Brown | September 18, 2009 at 11:15 PM
Kate - thanks for the tip - I'll check it out. I am already in tune with the title.
Hi Claire - thanks for visiting. Button up shirts are actually my saving grace - my children have freakishly large heads so it's the only hope I have of getting an article of clothing on them. And I agree, fresh air (and wine) always help.
Posted by: Dawn/LittleGreenFingers | September 19, 2009 at 08:45 AM
It's got to be a lot less work looking after a pumpkin than a 4/5 year old. I wonder if I could get away with substituting my 14 and 11 year old with a pumpkin? Seriously though, things will get better. Littlies change their minds so often that he'll be itching to get to school before you know it. It's all so new at the moment, but when he's established who his friends are and gets into a routine there'll be no looking back.
Posted by: Jo | September 19, 2009 at 09:25 AM
Strange my work colleague's friend starts crying when they line up as well - how peculiar. She is getting better though no tears on Friday
Posted by: Helen | September 19, 2009 at 10:20 AM
Jo - Child-pumpkin substitution is an idea whose time has come! And thanks for the words of encouragement - we'll see how next week goes
Helen - What's with this line issue? I think it's an untapped area for child psychologists to expolore!
Posted by: Dawn/LittleGreenFingers | September 19, 2009 at 01:04 PM
I am quite sure we pass our anxiety onto our children and they respond accordingly. I never learnt how to avoid this but my little girl who would sit on the stairs in tears making herself sick most days. Then was badly picked on by a horrid bully until after some years the bully went and picked on someone else.
The school would not do anything and we had decided to move daughter for A levels but things resolved.
She is now a successful Cello teacher/music teacher/cello player and is still great friends with the group that bullied her. They apologised eventualy and confessed they were too frightened of the main bully to not go along.
Needless to say the main bully has gone off in her own disfunctional life.
So the tale is we all get through eventualy and look back and wonder where all the years went to.
Just think of the school outings you will be able to go on and maybe a trip to the allotments with the children so they can see where vegetables come from. I remember that was quite a treat.
Posted by: Joanne | September 22, 2009 at 09:58 PM
The thought of you patting a pumkin really made me laugh!!!
Maybe I should have substituted a pumpkin for First-Born .... then I wouldn't have had to take her back to uni again last week! (at least this year I didn't feel like my heart was being ripped in two)
It will quickly get easier for him - and then he'll be running through the gates without saying goodbye......!
Posted by: Liz - aka Nutty Gnome | September 25, 2009 at 09:34 AM