My 5 year old officially started Kindergarten and as I had anticipated, it did not go so well. Despite our challenges… I am so proud of my Trey man. Here’s how the first day of Kindergarten went down at my house.

I woke him up at 7:10. He started crying. I made him get in the bath. He started crying. Went down stairs for our hearty breakfast of Carnation Instant Breakfast. Not so much crying anymore, but refusal to take a drink. (Did he even take a sip? Nope.) Realizing that I would be sending my child off to his first day of Kindergarten with an empty stomach,  I started feeling the first inklings of annoyance. Deciding I was done fighting with Trey to drink his milk, I shuffled him towards the door to leave. As I opened the garage door to load up and head out, the DRY HEAVING kicked in. Oh yes, my friends, my son throws up to get out of things he doesn’t want to do. Let me tell you, it was not working that morning! I told him in my “serious” mommy voice to stop the dry heaving and get in the car. Now I was mad, not sad. I’m such a nice mom, right?

People often tell me how sweet it is that Trey has separation anxiety. That I must be such a sweet and nice mom! Ha. Not the case, I’m sure of that.

Let me continue…. He was mad. I couldn’t even get a decent picture of him with his backpack on because he wouldn’t even touch his backpack. Holding his back pack meant to Trey, “I’m ready to go to Kindergarten and I’m happy about it”. Below, showcases what I resorted to in order to snap some pictures of Trey.  This is one where he is pretending to punch the camera. Real nice, kid.

Here he is trying not to smile!

Eventually we arrived! After we parked the car, Trey and I headed out to the Kindergarten playground. He was freaking out. I could feel his sweaty little palms in mine. I sat down on the sidewalk and drew two hearts on his wet palms. I told him to kiss his hand anytime he was sad and I’d feel it. I whispered, “It will make us both happy.”

I asked him to go play, go stand over by the playground, something. I snapped a picture and was fortunate to receive a little smile. smirk.

Next, the bell rang. It was time to line up. Trey decided to run away. That’s right, I had to run after him through the crowd of people. I caught him by his shirt. Lovely. People were starting to look at me with pity in their eyes. If they weren’t pitying me physically trying to round-up my 5 year old… they were crying for themselves. I saw a lot of moms with tears in their eyes because, while leaving their “babies” was sad for them, their “babies” were not sad about being left. Some little kids charged onward without even a backwards glance, a wave or even a goodbye.

I finally got Trey up to his classroom line. Well, not in line but against the wall looking at all the kids in the line. One little girl in his class starts to break down. His teacher saw her, picked her up and walked into the school. I wanted to scream,”What about me?! HELP! I told you Trey was not going to go easily.” So stuck outside with a crying Trey yelling, “I want to go home, I don’t want to go to Kindergarten today” I decide to try one last time to get him in that line and into that classroom! I was dead set on getting him in there so I could leave. Tugging on Trey to get him to join the line, I quickly realized it was not going to be easy. Trey was just as determined as I was. As we began battling, both of us determined to win, I had my first thoughts of giving up. I started thinking, maybe tomorrow would go better…

Suddenly, from inside the school I see an arm reaching towards me. A glorious arm. On the end of the arm was the teacher aide. As she continued reaching towards us this sweet teacher aide asked me, “Mom, can I take him into the school, can I take his hand”? I practically screamed, YES. I put his hand in hers despite his crying “Mom, I want to go home with my mommy”. Then before I knew what was happening I watched Trey walk into the school and he was gone! To be honest, watching him leave was awful, gut wrenching, and hard. I felt the tears but I forced myself to block them out. I knew Trey would love it and be so happy once I was out of sight.

I have to be honest. I didn’t cry. I thought about him a ton and I missed him a lot, but really, It was nice to have 2 kids at home.

So, fast forward 6 hours. When I walked in to pick him up, Trey was a new boy. He had the biggest smile on his face. As he gave me a huge hug he told me, “I loved Kindergarten.” I’m so happy and so proud of him. He told me his teacher told him “no crying tomorrow” so let’s cross our fingers people! He did great at lunch. Ate lots of his food. Came home and ate the things he didn’t have time to eat, {Um, tear}, like his peach and Peanut M&M’s. I made him cookies and he was happy. Now him and his brothers are fighting. All is well…. until 8am tomorrow.

UPDATE! DAY 2
This morning went better. No tears. Only when the bell rang and it came time to line up, he started crying and I gave his hand to another teacher and Trey grabbed a hold of my shirt… with his teeth! Yes, he’s now biting my shirt. People were watching and laughing. He was seriously pulling on my shirt like a puppy dog. It was amazing really. But he had a great day after he calmed down. Unfortunately, he arrived home with this note in his backpack warning me of an illness in the classroom. Ugh! Not cool.

Here is our day in a picture. He started off the morning with some mediation. Then the kissing hand, then the note from the teacher.

I’m assuming tomorrow is going to seem a lot like today. We shall see.