Poor Will

Sometimes I think everything I write about William is about “poor Will”. Second babies definitely don’t get the same level of intense scrutiny their elder siblings do—although maybe this is good. Will had a really hard week at daycare last week, and we have no idea why. He could be cutting molars. He could be waking up at night and not going right back to sleep. He might be having some trouble adjusting to the new teacher in his classroom, Miss Amber, although she seems very nice (yes, they’re all Miss, even if they’re Mrs. They don’t seem to like Ms. at daycare).

Every morning we took him in, he would cry if anybody even looked at him. There’s this climbing toy in the room, basically four big wooden boxes with holes in them stacked together so you can climb through one into the next—every morning last week he wanted to climb into the bottom-left hand box with his pillow and blanket: “I want to get in my hole!” He’d just lay there and cry and cry. Eventually after poor Mama or Daddy dragged themselves out, leaving little inconsolable boy, he’d stop crying and go to sleep. Amber and Amanda spent the week sitting on the floor next to the hole patting Will on the head reading stories to the other kids or whatever until he went to sleep—he absolutely would not come out until after he’d slept a while.

Then Wednesday they called to tell us he wouldn’t wake up for lunch (which is supposed to be followed immediately followed by naptime)—not the in a coma kind of not waking up, just the really cranky sleepy kid kind. Chris went and picked him up early and took him to school with him—he seemed better by then, because of course he’d napped all day. Thursday I dropped him off and told them just to let him sleep til he felt happy again—he slept from 9:20-3:20 that day. Evidently he felt a lot better afterwards, since he ate a giant lunch of chicken nuggets and tater tots (they saved his food for him)—and was a different boy then.

He’s feeling better this week, but I’m sitting here looking at his “My Day” sheet from last Thursday—it tells his nap times, what they had for lunch, any special art projects they do during the day—we get one every day so we know what happens during the day. One section is called “Today I was” and the teacher circles one or two descriptions: very energetic! busy as a beaver! quiet as a mouse! soooo silly! a good leader! super! perfect! a creative kid! full of fun! Will usually gets very energetic (he never gets perfect—I wonder if they just put that on the sheet to freak out the parents, frankly), but for Thursday he had quiet as a mouse, and they wrote in sleepy. I should say so.

He seems more like himself this week, although still a little slow to acclimatize to the room. I guess it’s tough being two.