The Special Talking Spot

School started this year, somewhat uneventfully. Everyone went into their classroom on their respective first days of school excited about the future school year.

...Until the second day...

We have now been in school for two weeks and I am just now getting to blog about this for various sundry reasons that would take the entire blog-o-sphere to explain, so I will save your eyes the trouble.

Jacob and Abby are having no problems going to school each day. They are excited and have no separation anxiety what-so-ever. And then there's Caleb.

Caleb is my tender hearted child. The one who is always concerned with other people's feelings. He is also the eternal peacemaker.

He cried going to school on the second day, and the third day, and the fourth day, and so on and so on. So on the second day of school I took him over to a corner of the hallway just down from his classroom and there was started the "special talk spot." This particular part of the hallway has a clock in it and every day we talk about how long it will be until I come to pick him up. He asks me if I am going to be ok without him. I tell him how excited I am that he gets to go to Kindergarten. etc...etc...

The whole time we talk his little lips quiver and his eyes water and he tries to hold it all back, but the tears slowly creep down his cheeks. It has gotten a little better with each passing day and he does eventually...and reluctantly go into his classroom for the day and I walk away praying that God will comfort him and that he will have the best day.

We have done this every day since the beginning of school...You see, Caleb is also a creature of routine. Paul even offered to take the boys to school one day and Caleb overheard him. Immediately Caleb ran to me crying saying, "Please Mommy, don't let Daddy take us to school, he doesn't even know where our special talk spot is!" (I, of course, took them to school.)

I also know that he has awesome days at school. I hear from his teacher, he is happy when he gets in the car at the end of the day...etc. It's just the initial separation in the morning. He told me one day after school that he had a "legendary" day at school. The next day he told me his day was "heroic, and that was one step down from legendary, but it was still good." Another day his teacher told me that Caleb was smiling at the end of the day and she asked Caleb if she could see him smile in the morning. He replied with, "Nope. I can't smile in the mornings because my mommy needs to see me cry."

On Friday I got to be in Caleb's class with him and help with a project and he is super happy and extremely polite and helpful to the teacher. I guess if I have to keep going to the special talk spot for the rest of the year, I will. The truth is, I secretly cherish this extremely special one-on-one time with my middle child...and at the same time I would love for him to learn to jump out of the car say "bye mom" and be off in a flash. Basically I want my cake and to eat it too.