Tragic mornings

Mornings at our house lend themselves to a certain trauma that no other time of day does. Will had a very harrowing morning today, all beginning because he didn’t want Daddy to brush his teeth. Then he didn’t want to do them himself. Not Mommy either. Things just always degenerate from that point on, between a persistent irresolution and threats of no television that afternoon, which after all is very very far away. Minutes or hours later, teeth finally brushed, heaving little sobs and still red faced, Will left with Chris for school, giving me a hug on the way out the door. They weren’t gone ten minutes before the phone rang, with Chris on the other line announcing that someone wanted to talk to me. I hear this heavy silence, another sob, then this poor fractured expression of grief that somehow Will did not get to tell me goodbye before he left. Apparently it took that whole time for Chris just to figure out what Will was saying. Whew. I hope things settled down by the time they got to daycare. Poor Chris.

Will doesn’t pitch these fits that often, but he actually had a similar meltdown last week when I took him into school one morning late during my exams. I only had grading to do that day, so we goofed off, not heading into Will’s school until around 10:30, very late for us. I wasn’t in a hurry, so we made a seahorse or two from Play Dough before I kissed him and started to leave. But he just exploded, the teacher finally having to pry him off me as I bolted (unhappily, might I add) out the door. As I came in flying out, the center’s director and assistant director were both zooming in to see who was being massacred. I had to sneak past the window to the classroom, which ended up not doing any good, since Will was standing right next to it crying and watching my car. Thank goodness that was our first Caterpillar window meltdown, and I devotedly hope it’s our last.

The oddest thing, though, was that I stopped briefly to peak around the inside window and see if Will was calming down any, and then started to head back down the hall to the grownup bathroom to wash the Play Dough smell off my hands when the assistant director actually grabbed my arm to stop me. “Where are you going?” she asked, and I realized she thought I was going back into the classroom and intended to stop me. I had this immediate memory back when Laura was a Butterfly in the same school of one of my friends and her husband having terrible trouble leaving her daughter in her classroom. As I recall, it wasn’t that Juliet actually pitched a fit when they left, just that they wouldn’t leave and wouldn’t leave, just wouldn’t. The then-director actually pulled me aside to see if I could help them—their daughter was fine. But of course nothing I could do would help: sometimes it’s just hard to leave. When Pam grabbed my arm, I shook her off. Though I had never had any intention of the world of going back into the lion’s den, and upsetting whatever peace Will would slowly reach with his teacher’s help, I could barely keep myself from marching in that second to reclaim him, just because she was trying to stop me.

Laura’s first days at daycare were so filled with wonders that I never really had qualms about leaving her during the day—they got her on a regular nap schedule! They helped her give up Macy, her horrible pacifier that she kept plugged in her mouth even when she talked! I would have paid those folks any amount of money. But she didn’t start until she was almost two years old, and William was still fresh, only four months old, barely budding out of his newborn blankets. And my last baby. My God, I can still feel how awful it was to leave him and go back to work.

We’ll have another bad bump when he starts kindergarten, I know, but after that things will have smoothed down, and the other transitions, like Laura to middle school next year, will be easier. Or less obviously difficult. So Will’s morning meltdowns will end, and Laura’s begin in a new way. Pimples. Periods. Not wanting to dress out at gym, and who knows what else that I couldn’t ever possibly understand. Like Will, I just think, next year is so far away.