Tough transition

Its been 10 days since we have left our old house and moved into the new one. At first, it appeared as though Luke was the most excited about moving. He loved visiting "553" before we closed, and loved running around the house and yard. It was exciting, and he didn't have to worry about the physical act of moving.

But it now seems as though Luke has been having the toughest transition. He keeps asking when we're going back to the old house. Perhaps it isn't just the house though. As an unfortunate side effect to our move, Luke and Matt had to change day care centers. We all really loved our old day care and especially the people there, however with our new paths of travel to work, going to the old day care every day would have been several miles in a different direction.

We called Luke the "little mayor" of his old day care because he was so well loved and moved easily between many different friends. With a new day care comes a new teacher, new friends, and new rules. I do the drop offs each morning, and with the exception of this morning, Luke has cried each day I dropped him off.

"Mommy, I want to go home."
"Please, Mommy, take me with you to work."
"Can we go back to my old day care? I don't want to go to a new day care."
"Let's run away to Mexico together, Mommy."

Ok, so maybe he didn't suggest we run off to Mexico, but the other three statements came out of his mouth. On a typical drop off this week, I would stay in Luke's classroom with him almost 20 minute before he would stop crying and allow me to leave. It also didn't help that within his first two days at day care, he ran a fever and had to miss a day and a half.

Luke has been throwing a lot of temper tantrums since we moved... testing boundaries like any good independent, intelligent kid with a good bit of self esteem would do at the ripe old age of 4. He has also come into our room around 2a each morning because he doesn't want to sleep in his room anymore.

Thankfully today was a little better. Nate made Luke a scrambled egg for breakfast, but because Luke refused to get his shoes on (this fight lasted about 20 minutes this morning - stubborn kid! I can't imagine where he gets it from!), he didn't have time to eat it at home. I packed it up, and Luke got to eat the egg around the table at school with the other breakfast eaters there. Rather than cry upon entering the classroom, he was happy to sit down and eat. I left as quickly as I could as to not disrupt the magic. But of course I watched from the window for a long time, and was so happy as Luke engaged energetically with his peers.

I am reminded that when Luke started at his old day care, we had several weeks of transitions. Though this is frustrating now and was also frustrating back then, I am encouraged that each day seems to be a little easier for Luke. Hopefully as we settle into a new comfortable routine, the temper tantrums lessen and Luke starts sleeping through the night again.

Keep your fingers crossed for Luke, and we'll keep scrambling eggs.