Being Caught Off Guard

This past week was an interesting one. Nothing major happened but a few small things occurred that really caught me off guard. Jeff took the day off of work on Thursday to spend with me while the kids were in school (no that's not what caught me off guard, although it probably should have!) and so he was able to come with me to pick up Allison from school. When we got home, I noticed Allison wasn't her normal self. Something was bothering her. I thought maybe it was because Jeff was home and that was throwing her off a bit. But she said that wasn't the problem. I asked her if it was someone at school. She said no. I asked her if she was scared of something, she said no. All she said was she didn't want to tell me but she already knew how to fix it. So I said, how are you going to fix it and she replied "get it." Of course that made no sense to me and my mind was racing at this point. I tend to think about the worst possible scenario - someone hurt her or something bad happened at school. I was really worried and kept asking her questions trying to get something out of her. I wasn't going to just let it go. After all, the world is filled with crazy people and you just never know. Finally, she gave me a clue. She said" We already talked about it on the way home." I had to use what little short-term memory I have (yes, my memory absolutely sucks) to recall what we talked about on the two minute drive home. Then I remembered it. We talked about how she had Art that day, one of her favorite fine arts, and how she had drawn a picture of an owl. She had told me that she had given it to her teacher and I said "oh, I would have liked to have seen it. I love seeing your artwork." She finally told me that was why she was upset and even crying at this point. She felt she had disappointed me because she didn't bring her picture home. I was so relieved that the reason she was upset was so minor but of course I felt awful for making her feel that way. I explained that it was a wonderful and thoughtful thing for her to give her art picture to her teacher and it was okay that she didn't bring it home and this made her feel much better. The next day I opened her backpack, pulled out her folder and found this:
She had a huge smile on her face when she saw me look at the picture. She said she asked her teacher if she could bring it home and her teacher said "Of course, thank you for letting me have it for a day, that's all I needed it for." Oh, the things that can upset a sensitive 6 year old!

Now onto the second thing that happened this past week, in fact it was the same day. We all went to pick Daniel up from school. Usually I get there during snack time and I have a chance to talk to the teacher about how his day went but we were a few minutes late and the kids were already getting ready for story time, as was his teacher so I didn't really get a chance to talk to her but she managed to tell me that he had a bad day at school. He yelled at his teachers. Yes, my Daniel - I know it's hard to believe - here is a kid that won't even acknowledge another person while out in public, yet he's yelling at his teachers at school. We're still dealing with crying at drop-off but he usually stops once I leave the room. But there is another point in the day when he cries - when the kids go down for nap time and his teacher has to leave for lunch. Both the teachers and I had tried to explain to him that his teacher will be back and she needs to go eat her lunch. But every Tuesday and Thursday, without fail, he cries at the same time. But this day, along with the crying, came yelling. It also didn't help that he didn't get a good nights sleep the night before and was probably quite tired all day. When we came home that day, I told him I was disappointed in him and he can't yell at his teachers. Jeff also told him that he can't go to Disney World next month if this continues to yell because Mickey doesn't let in kids that yell at their teacher. After a lengthy discussion with my 3-year old, he said he will have a better day on Tuesday. I guess that remains to be seen...