Monsters Are Eating My Brain

All morning long, Lidia was bubbling with excitement over school. She must have asked if it was time for school 100 times. When the time finally came, she raced ahead of me to the garage, doing anything she could to help me and speed up this process. Once we arrived, she could not wait to go in. We went inside, put our papers and bags in their proper places, checked the job board–Oh, look! Lidia has a job today. Her job was to set the cups at the chairs for snack…Teeny tiny little chairs…Awwww. She did that, quickly, said a speedy hello to her new teachers and made a beeline to the dress-up/pretend play corner. After watching her play for a while and snapping a few pictures, there was really no reason for us to hang out anymore. I said goodbye and gave her a smooch. I told her to say bye to Daddy and her boys. She yells across the room, “Bye Daddy and my boys!” which was followed by chuckles from the other parents and teachers. Then we left. Huh. That was easy. Not that I wanted her to be pining away after me but–you know… It’s nice to know you’re missed sometimes.

I took the boys home, put them down for a nap and tried to tackle some of the mess in the kitchen. Gavin did not sleep long and soon it was he and I hanging out while Liam slept, for once. We even had to wake him up when it was time to retrieve the princess from school.

When we arrived, I noticed some kids on the playground, but did not see Lidia there. As the boys and I headed inside, I suddenly heard “Hi, Mom!” emanating from the bathroom that I had just walked by. “We’re going outside!” she announced loudly as pulled up her pants and began washing her hands. She then ran past me and–well, outside.

I didn’t really expect her to run into my arms, throwing her arms around me for a hug. “Oh Mommy I’m so happy to see you!” No, really. I did not expect that. But I kind of hoped, anyway. It is not easy seeing them grow up and not needing me as much anymore. For her, especially, it has gone too fast. I missed a whole year of needing mommy with her. I will admit, I’m not 100% ready yet. But I can see she is. The worrisome part of me wonders if this is a sign of an attachment issue–that she so eagerly let us leave her in a room full of strangers for a few hours–”See ya!” Then again, from another perspective, maybe it is because she IS well attached. She is confident that we would never leave her somewhere unsafe–and that we will always come back. I think I will choose to believe the latter, unless something else happens to change my mind.

Her teacher’s first comment was “Lidia is very outgoing!” I laughed. This, of course, came as no surprise to me. She is one to strike up conversation with anyone. She loves to talk to people, though I’m glad to say she still has a small sense of stranger danger, despite her open friendliness. We’ll keep an eye on that, though.

Teacher also mentioned that Lidia said something about being a baby in Russia. Wow, did not take her long to get her story out! Again I had to laugh. I hadn’t mentioned it since it didn’t seem important. I figured Lidia would mention it at some point–I just didn’t expect it to be the first day. I explained that she was born in Russia and we had brought her home at 12 months old. Teacher then asked if the boys were also from Russia. “No, they’re home grown,” I responded. That was that.

Upon discussing her day, Lidia informed me that she used glue, did something with a puzzle piece, painted, had pretzels, grapes and apple juice for snack and played in the sandbox. It sounded like she had a fun day.

At dinner she ate and ate. I haven’t seen her eat like this in a long time. Then, when she was done with dinner, she asked for ice cream. In the interest of teaching her not to gorge herself I just said, “Maybe we can have some ice cream tomorrow, you ate a LOT of yummy food for dinner.” Well, that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Instant freak out melt down. I was expecting this, really. Any time she has been over stimulated and/or over tired this happens. It only got worse as I cleaned her up (a task she usually does herself these days–but we had eaten lasagna…and she wasn’t about to clean herself up during a tantrum). So, Dr. Mom ordered up a dose of “Time For Bed” much to the princess’s misery. She was in bed at 6:40pm and sleeping in 5 minutes–she is not usually one to fall asleep quickly. It can take hours, some days. She was exhausted. The boys went down early, too, and at 7:45 we had all the children sleeping. That was strange. I even went to bed a bit early, though was up a LOT in the night. I did not sleep at all between 1am and 3:30. Then I was up again at 5 and 6:30. Blah. The boys had been sleeping a little better–or at least settling down better. But I suppose this can be blamed on teeth. Liam is up to 4 teeth now and more on the way, Gavin still at 2. Anyhow. Thus ends the first day of preschool. The princess is already anxious to return to school. But first, we are off to Michigan to visit that cute little baby nephew for the weekend.

Posted: Thursday, September 6th, 2007 @ 8:04 pm
Categories: Incoherant Rambling, Princess Lidia.
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