Progress Report

Well, it’s official.  We survived Linc’s first week of school.  Notice I said we survived, not he survived, because as the week has progressed, it has become clear that the ones struggling with the transition have been his parents all along.  He seems, quite simply, to love it.

Every afternoon he comes home with a little report telling us about his day, and so far they have been glowing praise.  Right from his first day, he happily walked into the room and joined the other kids.  His teacher called it one of the smoothest transitions she’s seen in twelve years.  The other kids know his name, and by all reports he is making friends with them right away, seeking out chances to play with them and generally acting like a real member of the class.  On Wednesday, the fire department came and did a fire safety program (dressed as Toy Story characters, no less!), and apparently Lincoln sat right down and enjoyed the presentation.  His new speech therapist says he is learning and repeating signs after just one lesson, even just with verbal cues (no modeling of the sign; he has to remember it himself).

One day he reportedly cried for a moment until he was picked up and briefly comforted.  My response to that was, “Geez, he cries more than that at home!”  Doesn’t he know he’s supposed to miss us terribly, have a terrible time adjusting, and generally be making us agonize over the whole thing?  How are we supposed to be mired in guilt and anxiety over handing him over to complete strangers when he is already blossoming under their care?

I decided I would give it a week before I mentioned how well he was doing, just in case he waited until the 2^nd or 3^rd or 4^th day to realize he hated it.  Turns out, he just might have been ready for the challenge.  Maybe he was tired of sitting around the house staring at the dingy carpet and being knocked in the head by his hyperactive brother.   I am so happy for him, although admittedly there is a little part of me that thinks he sort of belongs to someone else now, too, and I selfishly liked the idea that he was all ours.  Beyond that little discomfort, though, I couldn’t be more pleased with how this week has gone.

And we were so worried how Nico would react to Lincoln going off to school without him.  Turns out, that hasn’t been nearly as bad as we thought either.  Just ask Huck Finn here…

Nico has spent his mornings crafting to his heart’s content, watching movies with dad, and today even going for a hike in the gorgeous weather.  All of this positivity, this better-than-expected-outcoming has got me thinking that I have got to get some new stuff to worry about because, as Sam loves to point out, I’m not happy unless I have something to worry about.