Prince is starting his third week of Kindergarten, and Back-to-School Night is tomorrow, so I thought I’d reflect on the changes I’ve seen so far.
And tell a few funny stories.
-After a few hours to ourselves in the morning, the girls and I head out to pick Prince up at 11:45. I was a few minutes late the first day as I tried to gauge how long that drive would take me, and they had already taken him to the office to wait for me there. Another time I was delayed while on an errand and was thoroughly searched at the gate (so I was very late) and he was in his teacher’s room waiting for me. Ever since those two episodes, I have made it a high priority to be waiting outside for him for at least five minutes. And every time he comes out, marching in a line with his little friends, as soon as he sees me he practically jumps up and down, waving frantically and pointing to his latest craft project and shouting stories to me, even though I am too far away to hear. It is a sight I really must record, so stay tuned for a video of that.
-I hear a few more names every day of the kids in his class. On the first day, all he could remember was his teacher. The next day, Baron and Branson. Then Alondra, who sits next to him. And Mykie. And Mikayla. Now, he points them out to me as they get picked up by their parents. Tonight at dinner, he told me a funny story that one of them had shared with him. Lord Herndon and I have seen so much maturing in Prince in just these few weeks, and I think a large part of that is being able to do something on his own, surrounded by his peers, and away from his Shadow (aka Princess).
-Prince shocked me one day by telling me that he had to sit in time-out and he had lost his recess privilege that day. It took a while to get the full story out, but apparently he had been lying down on the floor and wouldn’t sit up in his chair. I asked him why, and he said he was “so so tired.” Well, let me just say we do our part. We encourage him to take a nap after lunch and, if not, he at least has to play quietly in his room for an hour or so. He gets lots of exercise in the evenings and we eat at a reasonable hour, and bedtime is around 8:00 pm. He does have to get up early to go with Lord Herndon in the mornings, but he is able to doze in the car and even rest in Lord Herndon’s room before his class starts. Apparently, this is not enough. Something to work on.
-He raises his hand for permission to speak in the car and at the dinner table.
-For those of you who don’t know this intimate detail of our lives. Prince is a very affectionate, joyful boy, but he has a stubborn streak! He has chosen to exert his power by refusing toilet training. For the last three and a half years, we have been fighting him and ourselves over this, trying almost every trick we read about or were advised to do, and nothing worked. I was very close to giving in to despair and accepting the fact that I would be cleaning him up for the next fifteen years, but I was holding on to the hope that he would start school and just suddenly decide to do it the way all of the other kids were doing it. I combined that theory with a consultation with a specialist from Children’s Hospital in Denver, during which he recommended we buy Prince a spectacular present and only let him have it if he was successful in the bathroom.
Oh yeah, that’s blatant bribery. But he said it would work. He said, “Make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
We bought him a VTech V.Reader, which is the toy that he kept playing with when we let him loose in Target. We call it his “Kindle.” (of all the toys he could have picked, I was pleased that he chose a learning one!)
All of this worked for the first week. He loved school so much, and he loved his Kindle so much, that he essentially trained himself and had zero accidents and needed zero help for an entire week. I was so thrilled, I made a few calls. (A few, mind you. I wasn’t completely convinced yet, after suffering for so long.)
Since then, he has regressed a bit. He is successful all morning at school, but is about 50/50 during the evenings and weekends. It is really hard not to be twice as angry now, since we had that taste of victory. Please pray for patience and grace for us as parents!
-Finally, he begged me to let him go to school last Saturday. Begged.
I said, “I am going to remember this when you are 15.”
