First Day of MDO

This is how our day unfolded:

6:30-7am: I'm tossing and turning in bed, nervous about the day and afraid I will sleep through my alarm

7am: Get out of bed and quickly get dressed

7:30am: I start getting Ryan's breakfast ready and chopping all his fruits and cereal bars into teeny tiny pieces for his lunch. I start trying to make some noise so that he will wake up on his own (since he usually doesn't get up until around 8:30)

7:45am: Ryan has his milk and then I force him into his high chair so that he can begin eating. He was not a fan of this. The boy likes to leisurely eat and get ready in the morning. On any given morning it's 10am before breakfast is finished and he is changed for the day. He did not eat too much and began getting upset

8:10am: I go to change him and he is bawling. He's covering his eyes on the changing table and just plain upset. This is TOO much for him this early in the morning

8:15am I spend TEN, yes, TEN minutes trying to get his tennis shoes on him. He is used to wearing sandals all the time but they are not allowed at school. We were both getting frustrated, but somehow I finally got them on.

8:25am: I am rushing to take some pics of him outside to have his "first day of school pics" He would not stay still for any pics, so these were the best I could get. We started out in his chair. he was having none of it and was very disturbed by his backpack.

 Got his puppy and his sippy cup; life is good

 a little tired

 happy boy

 "Ok mom, I'm ready to get this show on the road"

9:00am: We pull into the parking lot right on time

9:05am: We walk in, he immediately jumps out of my arms to run over and show this little boy how it's done.

 You can't tell from this picture, but he ran over to the kitchen area to his go-to toy, the microwave.

I was finally able to tear him away to go wash his hands (it's supposed to be the first thing you do when you get to class) and he was not too happy with me. Once I got him up on the stool, he thought it was pretty neat and had fun splashing in the water. By now, you are probably thinking, "Wow, seems like everything is going really well; even better than expected." That's what I was thinking, too. Even when I went to say bye bye, he looked at me, waved, and said bye bye. [pause] And then came the panic. He literally started running after me screaming. One of his teachers swooped him up and I left. I stood outside the door for about 10-15 minutes listening to him screaming. By the way, he was the only kid out of 8 to cry. Not sure why, but it definitely made it harder knowing I was the only one leaving a screaming child. I had a few different women peak in there to confirm that, yes, it was indeed the boy in the red overalls still crying. Eventually they went and pulled out his pacifier and it calmed him down. So I finally left about 9:20

Fast forward a few hours and I find myself back in the parking lot at 11:20 (they have early dismissal at noon this week) because I was afraid of being too far away in case I got "the" call. I actually notice about 10 other parents waiting in their cars too, so I didn't feel so crazy.

11:50am: A few of the moms start to gather outside the door and are peaking in to see a whole bunch of screaming, snotty nosed kids. Apparently, the attempt of feeding them all lunch before noon did not go well. I can see Ryan's back facing the door. He was sitting at the little lunch table, with puppy in tow, so still. I was thinking, wow, my kid seems to be the only one not upset. WRONG!

12:00pm: We all go in there and I kind of sneak up on his side, and there he was sitting there all blotchy, snot everywhere, food ALL OVER him, his clothes, and puppy, just crying away. He got up from his chair and threw himself on me. He even did the look-up, stare, and lay back down a few times to make sure I was still there. I asked the teacher how he did and apparently, he played nicely all by himself pretty much the entire time in the kitchen center. Guess it's going to take awhile for those social skills to kick in! At least he didn't cry for 3 hours, so that's positive. He also only ate what appeared to be about 3 bites of food which is funny since it looked like he was covered in an entire meal.

12:10pm: We finally leave and this is what he looks like. Not too bad for a first day, I would say.

After we got home, I fed him the rest of his lunch and then he took about a 3 hour nap. Guess all the trauma and playing wore him out. He goes again tomorrow which I am sure will be harder than today since he'll know what's coming this time. Wish us luck!