what a week

What a horrible week.  Last week, that is.  I was too tired to blog about it when it was happening.

Mainly, I discovered Elias has been having a horrible time at daycare.  I feel guilty and very angry at myself for not waking up and getting him out of there months ago.  In spring we went through a rough time, compounded by me being severely sick for over 2 weeks.  However, I thought that was over.  He was certainly showing steadily better behavior at home, and I thought the hard stuff at school (not being able to sit still, running and yelling, not listening, pushing teachers, rarely participating in group projects) was also extinguishing.  I was getting more glowing reports than the dreaded "Elias has a rough day." Then 3 weeks ago the Teacher A asked if something had happened at home, since once again his behavior was bad...but maybe it was just because she and his other regular teachers were on vacation the week before.  Well, that continued for another week, and worsened.  We had a conference to discuss other tactics, and I took it very seriously and scheduled appointments with his physician, a behaviorist, and a psychiatrist, as well as take a much closer look at how he behaves in all non-daycare situations.  I realize now that at that point they had given up on Elias.  They didn't listen to me at all (they, after all, are professionals.  I am just an old, misfit, single mother of one.) and I found out they'd never even tried any of my simple hints, or those of the school therapist who came in the spring.  In fact, they stumbled upon something that inflamed his behavior, and hammered on that harder and harder, just setting him up for failure.  Many were "no-win" situations for him.  Teacher A was openly hostile to me and gave odd, inconsistent reports.  Yet I had gone on believing I was partnering with them (the experts) to make it better.  I was called to pick him up after 1.5 hr on Tuesday because they couldn't handle him.  He was a model kid before school, and then all during the long boring day at my office (because I had a critical project and nowhere else to take him).  I feel foolish for the trust and belief I put in them, and guilty that I failed to protect him as I should have.  I feel there's a lot of damage to undo, mostly in his self-perception as a "bad boy" that I heard espoused directly by his peers and via euphemism by his teachers and the director.  Also, too, that he has now learned that he can be rude and defiant and even physical with adults and totally get away with it. Ugh.  I'm so sorry, Elias!  We can still undo this, but it's not going to be easy or pretty. 

So, that was Major Stress Item #1, about a year's worth, actually.  Ah, but other practicalities butt in, too.  First off, I had to find another daycare ASAP--not easy when the good ones usually have waiting lists and just before the school year starts.  Then, I'm in the middle of our 2 giant Quality Systems audits at work which I'm responsible for and for which my coworkers are lending virtually no support, and occasional griping.  I gave up my 8-month quest to address some of my long-standing health issues.  A nice little add-on is terribly hot and muggy weather and nasty annoying allergies, which have struck me this year for the first time.  My company is basically out of money and this time there's no savior in sight, and Friday my worst thoughts on that were confirmed by another coworker.  Also that day I heard back that the company I turned down in January is no longer in a position to hire, leaving my only other job prospect one that is out-of-state...and I need to get back to them to ensure it remains a viable option.  How I dread moving with Elias.  Then, on Saturday morning when the week's end was in sight, we awoke to discover we had no water:  our house well had died.

Have I painted a bleak enough picture?

Well, the amazing thing is, with all this going on, it was also a wonderful week!  Yes, really!  God is good!  Despite the terrible anxiety and guilt regarding his daycare difficulties, I have a clear path forward and am finally doing something to address the problem.  It was a tremendous relief to discover, after researching and visiting 3 other centers, that there are lots of good schooling options (whereas I'd come to the opposite conclusion 3 years ago when starting with this place.)  All 3 of my top picks surprisingly each has 1-2 slots still open for 4yr olds. My finances will be in serious trouble when/if I loose my job this month, but I took precautions against this in early spring.  God will provide for us, as He always has, even when the means by which it would be done remain a mystery to me.  Mostly, though, it was a wonderful week because of all the time I spent with my son.  He is utterly delightful, and I have a new found clarity and appreciation of that.  All week he's been tripping all over himself to be helpful, engaging and polite.  Plus, he's still his own fearless, hyper, thoughtful self, which is wonderful to behold.  I am so thankful he did not become a docile daycare drone.  He's also rekindled his passion for reading which had been flagging, constantly spelling out signs he sees and asking me what they say.  There were just 3 or 4 incidences where the behavior reported from school tried to bleed into home life, but these were immediately nipped in the bud, so instead of spiraling downward, he just clicked back into "good" mode right away.  That's been very reassuring as a parent.  Also reassuring is concluding that most of his troubles are just in the context of that school.  He's been more talkative and cheery this week.  He just eats up praise, which is good to see, but also saddens me that he's been getting so much of the opposite message.  We dropped everything and took a vacation day at beautiful Devil's Lake on Thursday to just play.  I think that was the first time I actually outlasted his energy level, when he fell asleep in the car even before we left the park.  We now have a new pump in the well so are enjoying running water at home again.  Rather than dread moving away, all the blooming flowers and the booming garden make it easy to really appreciate where we're living right now.

This has violated all my blog rules of thumb:  keep it short, narrowly focused, and positive, and add lots of pictures.  Yet it's here for me to look back upon in the future when I will have forgotten it all. There's even the tiny chance that anyone else dedicated enough to read all the way through this has seen some point of similarity or felt some camaraderie of shared experience that gives encouragement.  God is faithful and good, and His blessings are abundant even when we are so easily blinded to them.