The Day Has Come

Jeffrey has been LOVING preschool. He enjoys playing, apparently really likes circle time on the carpets, sings the Cindy Circle Song all the time. One of the things he's really been looking forward to is eating lunch at school. Yesterday was Lunch Bunch day at school and he finally got to pack up his Cars (would it be anything else) lunch box with his own lunch. Most importantly he got a juice box - generally reserved for Erin's snacks at school. He also chose several varieties of crackers, a can of mandarin oranges, 5 peanut butter cookies. I enforced my will slightly and re-arranged his choices. He ended up with 1 Fluffernutter sandwich, a Lightning McQueen yogurt (yes there's even Cars on the yogurt), one variety of crackers (goldfish) and ONE homemade peanut butter cookie. And yes, the juice box.

School runs an extra hour on Lunch Bunch days so pick-up was at 1 instead of 12. When I arrived the teacher was explaining to one mommy that her son was wearing shorts (it was a balmy 65 here in Central VA yesterday) because he had a very large poop accident at school. She called Jeffrey over to me. He had a t-shirt on that I certainly didn't recognize. Apparently Jeffrey had been playing in the sink and SOAKED his beloved Little Einsteins shirt. And then proceeded to pitch a fit when they made him take it off. One last mom showed up to pick up her son (this is all within about 2 minutes) and the teacher explained that he was in shorts because he. . . . fell into the potty. I couldn't help but break out laughing . . . and remarking that it appeared they had quite an exciting day at school.

She turned back to me and said "well Jeffrey had to sit in time out again today because he hit Will." Apparently not just swatted him but all out decked him. I had feared this day would come. And today was the day. I made sure that he had apologized and then brought Jeffrey to the car. I repeatedly asked him why he hit his friend and couldn't get a coherent response. Actually he wouldn't admit to hitting anyone at all.

After his nap, I tried again.

"Hey bud, can we talk about school today? Why did you hit your friend?"

"I had to sit in time-out."

"Well yes, because you made a bad choice and hit your friend. Do you know why you did that?"

"I had to sit in time-out."

Clearly this conversation was not going to go anywhere. After dinner I decided I really needed to know what had happened so I called his teacher. She informed me that Jeffrey actually spent most of the day fighting, hitting, stealing toys and being a potential juvenile delinquent. Apparently there are a few toys that he has decided are "HIS" and that no one else is allowed to play with. I had a hunch...."Might one of them be a dump truck?" "Yes, he's very possessive of the dump truck on the playground." The same type of truck that gets taken away at least once a week here at the house because it "runs into" Erin's/mommy's/daddy's leg/foot/back.

So the focus at home base for the next few weeks is sharing and taking turns- child No. 1 is not the best sharer either. Wish us luck. At least we're still welcome back at school.....at this point.