Surviving the Transition to the "Big School"

Well, the first week of preschool started off pretty well because Baby CP was excited about attending his new school, the "Big School."  His teachers were impressed that he would handle drop off without tears and played like crazy all day and took 2 hour long naps pretty easily.  He has been really whiny though and just about anything will set off a semi-tantrum or crying.  He was sick the week before this first day which made him a little irritable, but we think he's also a little stressed out about the transition.  Starting on Thursday, he started to complain on the way to school that he wanted to go to the "small school" to see his friend Lucas. 

Each morning, he asks right when he wakes up which school we were taking him to and if we tell him the Big School he whines and doesn't want to get into the car.  The first few days I could avoid the subject or avoid giving an answer or say that I am going to work, but these past couple days he asks me over and over until he gets an answer.  If I continue to avoid the answer, he asks "but where am I going?" or "are you taking me to the big school?!?!"  Then at drop off he cries about wanting to go to his old school and doesn't want me to leave.  We suspected this might eventually happen.  Hopefully it's like his transition to daycare and the phase only lasts another week or so.

Clark Kent - playing dress up at the "Big School"

Unfortunately, the transition has also taken a toll on his lunch eating.  He didn't eat lunch on Monday or Tuesday of the first week, but thankfully there have been a couple days since where he has eaten everything.  He's also developed a weird fixation on "snacks."  I think this started because he sees that the kids at school have all different kinds of snacks.  Snacks aren't just food, by the way - they must come in some small packaging to qualify as a suitable snack.  I blame this on the Google parents who have access to unlimited snacks in their office pantries.  When I pick him up, Baby CP demands snack after snack after snack as if I have a supermarket in my backpack.  This is probably partly due to hunger, but mostly due to wanting to be like other kids.  I think there is something to be said about Communism here...I jest...but when he was at the small school all kids ate the same thing provided by the daycare teachers.  There was no need to check out what other kids were eating because it was all the same so the kids all focused on eating.  Hopefully Baby CP adjusts to this novelty soon too.

I do think that all the running around during the day at the  new school or at least the transition phase has made him more tired.  He sleeps almost 2 hours in school and then at night he's passed out at or before 10 and I have to wake him up in the morning.  This is earlier than he used to go to sleep.  I think we're going to see if we move bedtime up to get hin sleeping by 9:30 now to see whether he can get a little more rest.

Bday Celebration at Apple Tree

Running around with his Apple Tree crew.

Personally, I really miss the daily photos that we used to get from Apple Tree.

Apart from school, Baby CP continues to learn new letters and is interested in pointing them out to me on the street and in books.  He's really into reading some new stories together.  He thinks the Minions from Despicable Me are hilarious, especially when they say the word "butt."  He likes to sing the song Slippery Fish - the first time I heard of this song from him he told me he was practicing it while sitting on the potty. 

A funny conversation from one evening last week about five minutes after getting into the car after dinner:

Baby CP: I want a snack.
Me: But we're going to get ice cream now. That's a pretty good snack.
Baby CP: But I don't have any ice cream HERE, so I want a snack now.

The "HERE" was definitely said with attitude, as if I was being ridiculous. We had to laugh because it sounded so funny and you have to hand it to him that it was a decent argument, but I don't really want to encourage that tone of speaking.

We take off for a trip to NY next week.  That should be fun, but I do worry that this will reset the clock on the transition to school and it will take longer to get to the point where I drop him off without tears.  To make things even worse, only 2-3 weeks after we get back from NY he has to transition to the 3 year old class where he'll have new teachers.  I can only hope that the classroom for the older kids has better toys.  He complains that the new school doesn't have good toys...picky picky.