Starting Over

It's been around 6 months since I updated and I have let this site go to seed! So I am just starting over. We ran out of room on the computer for pictures, so I don't know when I will be able to add those...hmmm...we'll see.

Ben is currently going to a new Montessori near the high school where I teach. Mornings I scoop him out of bed (that's our bed, usually) and he sleeps on the car ride over. When we get there we have a precise ritual-I wake him up, we snuggle, read the book "Cuddle" or "123" and I walk him in. He still cries when I leave, which I hate, but what can I do? Then I sprint over to my school to go teach my 9th and 11th graders and get him as soon as I can get there at the end of the day...

He has 7 other friends in his Toddler class and various other friends of assorted ages after 12 noon. I like the school, but lately he's been pushing and sometimes even hitting (gasp!). I am not sure what to do about it...it's the first time I have heard about him being anything less than an angel so I am at a loss. He has consequences (the hated green chair time out) when he does these things at home-so I dunno. I have his conference in a few days and am a bit nervous about it. The idea of someone who spends the whole day with my kid not liking him because he misbehaves is very unsettling to say the least. This might not be the case but I worry. I want everyone to adore him, or atleast like him....and if he acts up-maybe they won't! Yipes!!!

Ben is now absolutely fluent. Right now he is laying on Rissy's belly after pulling her leg and getting yelled at. I yell too much these days and I hate it...I feel like he is constantly testing every single boundry we have and it's exhausting. I have a friend who has a child that's a few years older than Ben and when she was 2 and a few months I remember her saying "oh my God, she is naughty every moment of the day." I naively asked her if she uses time outs and she rolled her eyes and said that if she put Darwin in a time out for everything she did her time out would statrt at 9 am and end at 8 pm. That's exactly how I feel lately. There's moments where we play nicely and he is focusedad we laugh but then he'll be doing something ghastly the next minute. Today we played with clay for like 25 minutes straight and it was great, we were having so much fun. Then he started beating up the cat and putting his feet on the computer, pulling at wires... It's a tough time kinda. He wants what he wants when he wants it. And it's tiring.

Tonight I will bring him to my mom and family then he will be spending 3 nights away from us-we are already in withdrawl over it...then when I am done with school on Wed. we will join the family in Atlantic City for the time share. I feel like supplying them with a list of how to keep Ben from being an absolute terror but something tells me he saves his very best misbehavior for me and will be fine...God we're gona miss him! I hope it goes by fast!