My crazy (not in a good way) and lonely childhood

Yikes. I was not a happy camper growing up. This post will probably not give you any joy, aside from knowing that you or somebody you knew was not the only one that had a rough time.

Josh is very cautious and timid and shy in a new situation. It used to take him at least 30 minutes in every situation to warm up and join in. Each and every pre-school class, birthday parties, play groups, family get-togethers. You name it, and it took him time. If something lasted less than 30 minutes then he would never get into it. He would stand aside and take everything in and eventually join in after he got a VERY good look at what was going on exactly. Taking him to kindergarten on his first day was ROUGH. I wanted to walk with him, but I knew I would never be able to get a screaming, wriggling, running, scratching 5 year old 5 blocks to his classroom. So I struggled to put him in the car. After having to force him into his car seat (He would arch his back and stick his stomach out making it impossible to buckle him in, and then after pushing his stomach in and getting it buckled, he would pull his arms out of the straps all while screaming and crying. We were late to everything. So once I got him into his seat we drove to the school and on the way he took his shoes off and threw them. So when we parked, I left him in his car seat to get his shoes on knowing that it would be absolutely impossible to get them on if he wasn't stuck in one place. Getting his shoes on was hard. He was kicking his feet around and grabbing his shoes as I tried to put them on. Getting him out of the car was harder. The kid has strength. He was hanging onto the car seats and wriggling his body around and screaming. I had to pull his hand off of my seat and he would grab it with his other hand. I'd have to get his grasp off and he'd grab with the other hand. Once I finally got him out of the van, I did not think that I would make it with Josh to the door of the school. He reminded me of the time we accidentally slammed the cats tail in the car door. That cat went crazy, using it's muscles to make it go up and down and around--totally stuck by it's tail and just crazy. This was Josh. I was the car door and his wrist was the tail. He was crazy, climbing up my leg with his little legs, jumping around, screaming. It was all I could do to keep ahold of his little wrist and drag/carry him to his class. I was seriously afraid his wrist would be bruised. We alternated from me carrying him when I could get him in my grasp, holding both his kicking legs in one arm and the top part of his body in my other arm, trying to avoid headbutts and flailing legs. Oh, and I didn't want to drop him on the cement either. That would be bad. So I'd have to put him down and grab onto his wrist as quick as I could. We eventually made it to the door and lucky for us and everybody else at school, his classroom was the first one in the door. I drug him in and held onto him while he kicked and screamed and asked his teacher what I should do. I tested the waters and loosened up my grasp on him and he bolted for the door. I'd run and grab him crying and screaming and go back to the teacher, who was trying to talk to him and say hi, but yeah right! That was not happening. I asked if she had runners before and she said yes, but usually at lunchtime or recess. She had one that made it to the street and she had to chase after him and grab him right before he ran into the street. I felt bad because while she's running after these kids, what are the other kids doing? Not learning in a quiet environment, that's for sure. So the brave woman took ahold of Josh and tried to talk to him and calm him down (yeah, right!) and I made a run for the door. I waited outside the door where Josh couldn't see me for 30 minutes so I could grab him if he tried to run out the door. He was crying the entire time. There were a few other ladies in the hallway talking and one said "Oh, he's having a hard time." Then another lady said "I bet his mom is having an even harder time." I said "I'm the mom." I never would have thought that kid would be my kid. After a half hour of him not getting out the door, I decided it would be safe for me to leave. I did leave my phone number with his teacher to call if I had to come get him and he was just too much to handle. When I came to pick him up 2 and a half hours later, he was all smiles. He loved it! I knew he would. It's always just getting him there. A sweet, sweet mother sat with him in the corner and tried to calm him down and told him to pretend that nobody else was there, then she walked him around the halls after I had left. She asked her son to be his special friend. Josh's favorite part was when they did the gingerbread man story. "Run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man." I guess they do this every year on the first day of kindergarten. They have the speech therapist dress up in a foam gingerbread man costume and he runs around and the kids chase him and try to catch him. Ingenious for getting the kids back to school the next day. We were so, so lucky that there were so many awesome boys in Josh's kindergarten class. He made some great friends. Every day after school (if it was nice weather) Josh would play outside the school with his friends chasing them around, while the moms talked.

Josh had soccer and t-ball before kindergarten ever started and it was exactly like going to the first day of kindergarten. Impossible. But without the threat of having the kids taken away from us or going to jail or whatever, I just let him quit those after some infuriating and frustrating tries to get him to play. So soccer was back on and it looked like we were going to have some bad problems getting him there again (He's the one who said he wanted to play.) We drove over to the practice and one of his best friends, Cade, was there. Cades dad was coaching the team. Josh jumped out and ran to the field and we had no problems. So Cade has been a great friend for Josh. Cade has older brothers and I thought he seemed pretty confident. When 1st grade was starting for Josh I was afraid we'd have a rerun of the first day of kindergarten, but Cade was in his class. Yay! The teacher told me at a parent teacher conference that it was actually Cade who had a really tough time and Josh totally helped him. Once she sat the two of them by eachother, Cade did so much better. Josh's teacher said he would actually say stuff in front of the class and make them laugh. She said he was a ham and kind of the class clown and he was funny.

I was really happy when we found out Cade and Josh would be in the same 2nd grade class. On the first day of school Josh wrote a paper of favorites. He said his best friend was Cade (and the person he most admired was me, by the way :) ) We went to soccer and I saw Cade and his dad while Josh was playing and went over and told Cades dad that Josh wrote that Cade was his best friend. Cade came over and I asked him if he knew that and he said "Yeah, Josh follows me all around at recess." Ouch. Cades dad immediately said "that's okay" to Cade. I thought they were mutual friends and I did not think that Josh was that annoying kid that follows another kid around. (I was that annoying kid many times growing up.) So I was thinking about how to handle this when I was out on the route the next day. Do I talk to Josh and tell him not to do that? Was Cade just being a kid, saying something that he's undoubtably heard from his older brothers? I decided that I would first talk to Josh's teacher and ask what her take was on it and maybe talk to Cades mom and then to Josh. I really don't want him to bug and annoy other kids. That isn't good for anyone. I want him to play with good friends that enjoy his company as much as he enjoys theirs. Right as I was thinking about this, Cades mom called and said that Cade has been bugging her all day to play with Josh. So Cade went over and played at our house for over 2 hours. Josh thought it was only 30 minutes and Cade said he did not want to go home. So I think they are okay.....I am not looking forward to the times when the kids come home crying because other kids are mean to them or don't want to play with them. I think it actually hurts parents more than the kids. That sort of thing must have caused my parents all sorts of emotional pain. I will write about that more on my next post.

"Somehow I turned my ear off."

We were at Seven Peaks Water Park on the lazy river when Josh said "Somehow I turned my ear off." He didn't seem worried or anything. Maybe a little curious about how to turn it back on. I'm so horrible. I just laugh and sit in the joy of how they think and look at the world. Sometimes I will explain what is going on, but most the time I don't.

"You somehow turned your ear off, huh? How did you do that? Can you get it back on? Is it out of batteries?"

"Yeah. I don't know. I think so. No, I don't think ears have batteries."

I wish we could have a video camera going on all the time because they say and do the cutest things day and night!