Here we go again...

Drew was doing so well!  The last...two weeks, I'd say, Drew seemed to be "over the hump" with this whole moving thing.  He was excited for school and said things like "I love ECAW!" (Every Child A Writer) and "Oh boy!  Today is art!"  He was Mr. Personality at school and won at the Oral Interpretation Festival.  The walk to and from the bus stop was pleasant and I was starting to think that we had our groove back.

Around the end of last week Drew came home very upset and crying because his teacher says he has "bad handwriting."  Translation: The teacher is doing her job and correcting some of the misguided lines in his penmanship.  Trying to be encouraging, my husband told our boy not to worry.

"I have always had bad handwriting, son.  It's no big deal."  Drew continued writing and complaining.

"See!  Look at this!  It's terrible!"

"No, it's not!  I think that looks really good, Drew."

"Well, my teacher doesn't appreciate it." 

I tried to explain that his teacher is not saying that he is bad but that she is guiding him and trying to help him to get good at something that is fairly new to him.  It matters not.  The critique was taken very personally.

Monday morning no one wanted to go to school.  Understandable.  We just had a fun night of trick or treats.  Who wants to go to school/work after that?  But we must.  I sent everyone off to school.  Gabriel mentioned a sore throat on the way to the bus stop. 

Drew was lagging behind as we headed to the stop.  I could feel him dropping farther and farther back.  I turned around to encourage him to catch up and instead caught the little turd running back up the hill to the house.  Again.  This time I don't run up the hill.  Instead I chose to yell for him to get his little butt back down or I would spank it.  He turned around and stood with his hands on his hips and then reluctantly dragged himself down the hill.  Because of his slowed pace, the bus beat us there.  Drew stopped in his tracks and turned to run again but this time I'm right behind him.  I had to forcibly turn his little body around toward the bus, pick him up and push him up onto the stairs.  Whew!  All the while, our bus driver is cracking up.  Laugh it up, Mr. Chris.  Laugh it up.

I headed up the hill to Caren's to help clean up from the previous night's party.  I relayed the morning's events.  After talking it out I started to reconsider Gabriel's complaint of a sore throat.  The kids have been dropping like flies at the school due to Strep.  I decided to pull him out of school and take him to the Dr. 

Dr.'s quick strep test came back negative.  They are 95% accurate.  The doc sends a swab to be tested at a lab.  She says there is a 5% chance he could have it but since he has no fever it's likely that he doesn't.  I'm thinking I've been conned but I let him stay home anyway for a chance to recover from Halloween.

Aaron called "unfair."  He thinks Drew deserves a day off too and so Tuesday I let Drew stay home for a mental health day and to join me at Baking Day.  We had a great time together!  He was in his element.  We tried to make pasta with his new pasta maker he got for his birthday but we never got the dough right.  The persimmon cookies we made turned out to be a hit though and so we left on a high note and with a bag full of baked goods.

Wed. it's back to school again.  It takes me 30 minutes to get Drew out of bed, leaving him only 30 minutes to get ready.  It's plenty of time really but with all of the whining it feels like we will never make it.  I have to direct each step.

"Get dressed.  Eat.  Brush your teeth.  Put on socks and shoes.  (Isn't that part of getting dressed?)  Grab a coat.  Get your back pack. No you can't play a video game.  Walk to the bus stop.  Come on.  Come on buddy.  Hold my hand.  Look there's the bus!  Come on!  Hug and kiss."  And I walk back up the hill exhausted.

Half way through my day the Dr.'s office called.  The fancy lab test did find strep.  Awesome.  So I go back to school for Gabriel and then the pharmacy. 

"Drew is not going to be happy about this,"  Gabriel said.  Boy, did I know it!

I went down to the bus stop hoping for the best but Drew spilled out of the bus with a scowl.

"I hate this day!  This was a very bad day, mom!"

"Well hello, son!"

"Mom, I am never, never, never going back to that school.  Tomorrow you are going to go and take me out of that school and put me in a new one."

"I'm sorry you had a bad day.  Let's talk about it when we get home."

"My teacher is mean, mom!  She is meaner to me then YOU are!"  Hm.

"Well, that is mean.  Wow."

"She said that my ECAW was bad!"  I tried to get him to calm down.  I hoped the walk home would give him that chance but he would not stop.  I recognized that the boy needed to vent and so I let him continue his rant.  I offered no advice or sympathy but let him rail on.

"We had to describe an M&M and she said I did not use descriptive words.  Then I didn't even get to eat it!"  Ahh...there's the real crux of it all.  "I said it was small.  It was colorful.  It was green.  And she did not appreciate it!  My teacher never appreciates what I do and she shows me no respect!"

I had to turn around so he did not see me laughing.  After we got inside and I gained my composure, I suggested the little Rodney Dangerfield have a seat on the couch while I got him some water.  He did but he never let up.  He cried and ranted ALL NIGHT!  Even through dinner, even after my husband spanked his little brat butt.  We both were going back and forth between feeling sympathy for him and being fed up.  Have a bad day and throw a little fit about it, fine.  But to go on all freakin' night....too much. 

I do feel for the boy though.  While he went on and on; I had visions of myself crying over those blasted #2 pencils, cheese trays, flu shots, poorly manicured eyebrows, critters on hiking trails...hummingbirds.  My poor friends.  Are they as exasperated by me as I am over Drew?  I'm trying to muster up some grace for my son.  If his tantrum means we are not over the Moving Blues, if it means I'm in for it too, I hope ya'll can find the grace and sympathy for me too.  Lord help us all!