Preschool may be kaput

I asked Sam if he wanted to try preschool again today, and the answer was "Mommy stay with you?" That should have been a sign, I think.

To give some background, Sam had his first day by himself at a local drop-in preschool a few weeks ago, and I returned to pick him up after 2 hours only to hear his wailing from all the way down the hall. It turns out that he spiked a pretty big fever that day and got sick for the next few days. It probably didn't help that he didn't know any of the teachers or kids very well, and, as preschools often do, they had a schedule for the day that required a lot of transitions from him. All of that combined to make for a pretty miserable kid.

So, we took a break and tried again last week, and at the door he clung to me and wailed. I stayed for the hour to help him manage all the transitions and hopefully give him a good preschool experience to replace the old one. I thought that maybe, just maybe, today we could try again and I could maybe, just maybe, leave to get a cup of coffee and see how he did. I talked to him about it this morning, and he was skeptical.

We got ready for the day, and it was fraught with conflict. Looking back, I'm sure I was in a cruddy mood at the thought of dealing with another day at preschool, and so was he. We were downstairs trying to get out the door when it hit me - my yoga center has a mom-tot yoga class that we haven't tried in almost a year, and it started in a half hour.

"Sam, do you want to go to preschool or yoga today?"

"Yoga? Mommy leave you?"

"No honey, I'll be doing yoga, but I'll be in the same room with you. You can play with the toys."

"Go to yoga? Play with toys?"

So, there was my answer. And the rest of the morning was lovely for both of us. I got to do yoga while Sam plays with the toys and the other kids, and we both left feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.

I think that if both of us were so stressed out about a possible preschool session that we got that crabby at each other, it's not worth it right now. We'll try again in another couple months.