This summer he and Aaron started going to daycare at Tot's and Tikes and I love the ladies who take care of my boys and love them for me when I can't be with them. Luke and Aaron both adjusted well and Aaron no longer cries when he gets dropped off and has started telling them, "no!" so he is obviously comfortable there. Luke always seems to be having a great time when we pick him up and his teachers really seem to enjoy him and tell me how great he did. The only thing with Luke is that he started telling me he didn't like going there because he sometimes gets timeouts. I asked his teacher about it and she said he does occasionally get a timeout but it is always for really little stuff, like once during circle time he and a bunch of kids started talking "poopy talk" so they all got timeout, but she said he always gets so sad when he gets timeout and he never does it again so she never puts him in timeout for very long because it breaks her heart to see him so sad. (-:
I can just see it! Poor Luke, embarrassed about getting in timeout with his head in his hands and his lips pouted out so that he won't cry. I think he just hates getting in trouble with anyone other than me or Greg, and I understand because I was the same way. I remember notes my teachers sent home from school about how I liked to get everything just right but how sometimes that made it take too long for me to get things done. I was always worried I would mess something up and then be embarrassed. Can you say, "oldest child"? (-:
The last day of daycare his teacher asked if he was excited about school and he said, "No! I don't want to go to school!" He has been telling me that he "won't go", etc. I think he was anxious about getting in trouble and being somewhere that he didn't know anyone.
Fortunately last night we went to meet the teacher night at his new school and it was a huge success. We met his new teacher, Mrs Paronto, who had great energy and engaged the kids right away, and then we started looking around the room. By the time we had gotten half way around the room Luke pulled me down close and said, "Mom, this place is AMAZING!!!" Praise the LORD!
Today he was excited still but on the way there he suddenly realized that I was dropping him off and not staying with him and suddenly his fears came back. He wanted me to stay with him and when we walked in he held onto my hand and was too shy to talk except in whispers to me. We found his seat and he wouldn't sit or wear the name tag they gave him. It took a lot for me to get him to start to play with the shapes blocks she had sitting at his place.
Thank goodness it was the first day of kindergarten and there were lots of other parents with scared looking kids there. Luke's chair was kind of by itself but as I looked around I suddenly realized that I knew one of the other mom's there and her little boy was sitting right behind Luke. We said hi to each other and introduced our kids to each other. Her little boy also looked pretty nervous. One neat thing I share with this other mom is that our kids are almost exactly the same age and despite not knowing each other very well we have a lot in common and people who know us both always say how similar we are, we just don't share the same spaces much because we live in different towns and go to different (though both Mennonite) churches. Actually, Luke and her son have birthdays 2 days apart and Aaron and her daughter shared a due date but Aaron came early and her daughter late so they are 10 days apart.
After we told the boys that their birthdays were only two days apart and they could be friends to each other things started looking up. Luke asked if he could sit next to her little boy and his teacher said he could turn his chair around so they would be sitting at the same table until they needed to do an activity. Luke still was pretty uncertain about me leaving him but I got out of there with lots of exclamations about how much fun he was going to have with his teacher and new friend and after several hugs and kisses and no tears! (at least on his part, I got teary eyed as I left the building and the teacher said on the way out that she should have had a box of tissues out for the parents!)
Now it is almost time to go pick him up and I am hoping he will be talky and tell me all about it and be excited to go back. I know he won't always love school, but Kindergarten should be a fun year and I am hopeful most of the time he will enjoy the project based learning style used at his school even beyond Kindergarten. There are so many amazing teachers there and you can just see how much they love their jobs and their kids
So, in the past few months I have seen Luke grow up so much. He has grown physically, all arms and legs and so tall now. He is also an amazing big brother. He has his moments, he has figured out how to get Aaron to do things he knows he will get in trouble for so that he doesn't have to do them himself :-), but he also loves to play with Aaron and helps him learn new things all the time. Just this morning when we were talking about how we only had an hour before time for school his response was that if he only had an hour he wanted to spend it playing with Aaron. I asked him what he wanted to play and he said he wanted to play "powers" with Aaron, and proceeded to ask Aaron if he wanted to play and get him excited and help him put on his cape, etc. I had to pull him close and give him a big hug for that. I used to worry that Aaron was so much younger that Luke wouldn't want to play with him but I never needed to. From the moment Aaron was born Luke has been one of his biggest fans. Aaron adores Luke too, so it will be interesting to see how he deals with Luke being somewhere else so much of the time. For the first month or so he will just be there in the afternoons and Aaron will be napping during that time, but they will no longer be at the same daycare when I have to work and once Luke starts full days I think it will be a big adjustment for them both.
Anyway, I am proud of my boy and his big milestone, and I am sad that he is already so grown up and off to school. I know I am going to miss him being with me and I wish they didn't have to grow up so fast, and yet since they do, and I can't stop it, I am glad for the ways he is growing up and the people who surround him as he grows. I'll add a few pics later but for now I am off to pick him up!
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So Luke had a great first day and said they went on a bear hunt for a real bear inside the school, but didn't find it. (-: He said he still wished I could be there with him but he had fun and made new friends. yay!
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