Gavin is making new friends at school, mystery friends, even. There's a boy named Julian he talks about a lot. In fact, last week, apropos of nothing while eating dinner with Stacy (I was at work) Gavin said, while smiling, "Julian loves me." When Stacy asked him how he could tell Gavin said, "Because every day at school I sit by him and he plays with me." Thing is, I have never met or even seen Julian. I'm not calling my son a liar, mind you. I guess I'm just saying that I don't even know who he is anymore.
Today we had lunch with Jack and Sammy, twins in his class, and Beth, their mom. She is very crafty and loves math. I am not crafty and do not love math but I do love writing and have a guilty affinity for 80's and 90's era hair metal. So between us we could do a pretty awesome job homeschooling. If it ever came to that. In any case, bagels were had and no one really cried so I call the event a success.
Gavin got his first bad report from daycare on Tuesday. I realize I just wrote "first" as if I expect it to be one of many. I hope not, of course, but also recognize that he's three and also that he's human (most days). Ms. Eugenia told me that he was very disrespectful, sticking his tongue out and refusing to listen. He had to sit in time out, though was apparently not cooperative with that, either. She said something like, "We do not allow this kind of behavior in our class," which kind of sounded like Gavin was in danger of being kicked out of school, but I'm sure that only crossed my mind because I was feeling embarrassed and sad. I thanked her for telling me. I may have said, "I'm sorry," though I don't remember. I certainly felt sorry, but recognize that it isn't really me who needs to apologize. It's Gavin. And a sincere apology from a three-year-old is hard to come by. It's not like Gavin is headed for a special episode of My Toddler Is Out of Control with Maury Povich (or, wait, isn't there a Learning Channel show on that topic?), but it's still a major bummer to get a bad report about your kid.
Thankfully the rest of the week has been shaping out okay. And I was happy to hear that he's usually well behaved. So maybe Tuesday was just a rough day. It happens.
As for his behavior at home, well. You take the good, you take the bad... He still tries to hit us when we tell him it's time to stop doing whatever fun activity he's engaged in and go home or eat dinner or whatever totally less fun thing is coming next. And we definitely had some of that today after I let him play on the playground for 20 minutes. I gave him 10, 5, and 2 minute warnings, but to no avail. I ended up basically having to wrestle him into his car seat and let him cry all the way home. I should note that much of this crying was totally faking it, a new thing he's pretty fond of. (Note: I am not so fond of this.) I know that a large part of what is required of me is being firm yet patient and loving at the same time. The patience part can be hard. Because it's not easy to play it cool when a three year old is beating you up in your car.
I don't mean to make Gavin sound awful. He isn't. I mean, look at this kid. He's like the epitome of sunshine and all things beautiful. This was him this morning right before school, sticking his head out of the sunroof. While we were parked, of course. As I explained to Gavin, it would not be safe to do that when the car was in motion, to which he responded, "Unless you're in a parade."Tonight while eating dinner Gavin jumped out of his seat and tore out of the kitchen saying something very urgent sounding as he sped by, but he was going so fast there was a major Doppler effect and it took me a second to figure out that he was saying, "I gotta go poop." No sooner had I deciphered this message when I heard a crash in the hallway, the sound of Gavin colliding with the laundry basket that he, himself, left there. I rushed to him and comforted him while, at the same time, I pulled down his pants and got him to sit on the toilet before I had a kid who was not only crying, but also had shit in his pants. Mama D for the win.
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