Kindergarten

Do you like how the school is bright pink? Pretty cool, huh? The southwest is C-RA-ZY!

Brayden started kindergarten a couple weeks ago. I've been waiting to post about it so I could capture a few happy faces on the camera, but now I'm content to just document it. Our first day was complete with drama in addition to the woes of starting school. We tried to meet up with one of Brayden's fearless friends for riding the bus to help Brayden be brave and missed them. They were at our house, we were at their house. You know how it goes. Then we missed the bus because Brayden was about to pee his pants. No biggy, school is five minutes away, and I was going to meet him there anyway to walk him to his class. So we go to school and my baby that never cries cried/screamed the whole time we were there. I don't really blame him though. It was like 105 degrees outside and I've been paranoid about keeping him in an air conditioned house and out of the sun and heat. So Brayden did get to see several friends on the playground before school started and I thought we were going to be okay. He lined up with his class and walked without me into his classroom. But during the 10 minutes it took me to get to his classroom with the hoards of other parents, he couldn't find his desk and freaked out and came barreling outside a bucket of tears. He finally got settled again, and the fire alarm went off. More tears. Finally they got resettled. Then I left, and promised him I'd be back to pick him up. After school when I asked him how his first day of school was he said "It was the worst day of school." I complimented him on his really ingenious rhyme and then listened to the woes.

Now that it has been a few weeks, he's doing much better for the most part. He didn't like the bus and begged me to pick him up from school, but we've worked out a deal that if he rides without complaining, I'll pick him up on Raytheon Fridays when Mike is home to babysit Devin. He likes his teacher who came and did an awesome home visit. She played LEGOs with him for 30 minutes. Sweet! And we've met a couple kids on our street that go to school with him and one is in his class. However, I still get to have long listening sessions where he cries about school--everyone treats him the worst, he wishes people were nicer, this girl kissed him and said she was in love with him, this boy kissed him and wouldn't stop (wierd), someone called him chicken pants, he does everything the teacher asks and doesn't get moved up to maximum power (behavior chart thing) and the bus is too loud. Most of these are okay, but he cried for probably an hour about the girl calling him chicken pants. And because one child called him a name, everyone hates him, he has no friends, he gets treated worse than anyone else, etc. This little boy is boiling over with emotions. We've discovered if he's hungry, these problems are overwhelming and all consuming, and if he's full they are relatively manageable. But still, this is a whole new world for us. I'm assuming Brayden will toughen up with a little bit of time and hopefully the whole world won't hate him if one girl calls him chicken pants.