First day of school

The Boy broke my heart today when I dropped him off for his first day of Spanish summer camp. We walked in and he lagged behind as the teacher showed me where to put his stuff in the cubby room. I was signing him in when I heard his cry and looked up to see his weepy self reaching toward me from the arms of another teacher.

Oy vey.

This was completely unexpected and out of character. Back when I was a working mom and took him to day care for the first time at the tender age of six months, I handed him to Tatis, the lovely (and licensed) Colombian grandmother who cared for him and four other toddlers in her home, and he just looked at me as if to say "Ok, you can go now. This lady clearly knows what she's doing way better than you."

He's never had a problem with baby sitters and will haul off and leave his mommies without a second thought if something shiny catches his eye. When we went to visit the camp (a school, actually) a couple of weeks ago, he took one look at the children playing in the yard and ran off to the plastic play structures without ever looking back. He followed the kids into their classroom when recess was over, sat right down to join their afternoon activity, and cried when we told him it was time to go home.

So who was this poor pathetic little guy sniffling on my shoulder? I set him down in his classroom, where the teacher distracted him with giant lego-like blocks, and when he was playing with his back to me, I scooted out of there feeling like a traitor. My arms were empty and craving one more hug, though I knew this would just prolong the tears (his) and the agony (mine.)

This sounds a little overly dramatic, but I felt awful, and I MISSED him, and I couldn't wait to go pick him up four hours later. I spent the time running errands. It's amazing how much you can get done when you don't have a toddler to contend with and how weird it felt to walk leisurely through a store, not having to rush to get everything before the little one loses patience with the scenery.

I arrived early to pick the boy up. He was playing happily in the yard with one of his little buddies. The teacher told me he had cried just a little bit when I left, but she held him and he was ok. Then she handed me a fabulous drawing he had made and I chased him down as he ran from room to room because he didn't want to leave.

Oy vey.

When we got home, he kept saying: Crying, crying, crying. Me cry.
What did you do in school? I asked him.
Paint. Play-do. Play outside, he answered. For the record, these are a few of his favorite things, but when I asked him if he liked school, he said he didn't and went right back to chanting: Crying, crying, crying. Me cry.

And so it begins.