Sam has been abducted by aliens! Should I call the authorities?

When I went to take Sam out of his crib this morning he wasn’t there! Instead there was a little boy who looked EXACTLY like him perhaps put there in the middle of the night while we slept, oblivious. How do I know it’s not really my son that was in the crib this morning you ask? Well here is my evidence:

Morning routine the last two weeks or so (since we instituted potty stops)…

Sam wakes and calls for his Daniel (always his Daniel; I try not to let this bruise my ego). I go in and he looks at me and immediately asks to go downstairs and either eat or “voir Papa” (see Daddy). If he isn’t already screaming and whining, the screaming (as if his skin is being flayed from his body) and whining begins at this point. Generally it’s already started. He refuses to stand up so I can lift him out of the crib. If I’m feeling charitable I reach in and get him. If not there is much more screaming as I pretend to leave.

Okay now we move toward the change table to change his sopping diaper. More screaming about going downstairs to eat or see his Dad. The way he pleads to eat you’d think we never give the boy food. I explain in a calm Caillou Mom voice that first he has to change his diaper and/or have a pee-pee and then he can go and do everything he wants. He screams louder, kicks some, and at times hits me. Wonderful. I smile (inside I reminding myself of the struggle we went through to bring him home). Take him by the hand and put his little naked butt on the toilet. He screams and jumps down. I smile put him back on the toilet and walk away. He stays and screams and screams and screams some more. After, going around making sure all our windows are closed, wondering what the neighbours think we do to our children and waiting 5 minutes I return (I’ve learned that sitting with him just makes him scream more), remove him from the toilet – sometimes he pees; sometimes he doesn’t. He used to unroll the toilet paper and shred it in protest. Daniel cured him of that “hobby.” When he pees he generally calms down immediately (in anticipation of a reward) when he doesn’t …. Sigh. Diaper him while he screams and then send him downstairs screaming.

This morning:

He called, still for Daniel. I walked in and he was playing and hide-and-seek with his blanket. When he does this I generally play along (screaming does not ensue until after the game has ended) but this morning I was in a hurry – bus in 10 minutes! I pretended I couldn’t find him as I lifted the covers off of him and lifted him from the crib. He asked to go downstairs and eat. I asked him what do you have to do first and he replied “pee-pee.” There was no screaming. I was stunned; he does understand. I was beginning to wonder if he understood that once he went “pee-pee” that I would let him do whatever he wanted or whether he thought he was doomed to stay in the bathroom his entire life. He’d had me on the ropes until this morning. I was thinking of ending this routine.

He asked to take his little stuffed snowman with him. As he wasn’t screaming, I thought what the heck let him have a toy. Mean Mom that I am, I normally hesitate to let him bring toys with him because generally they become the focus and he never pees. We walked to the bathroom. I sat him on the toilet. Still no screaming. As I turned to leave he peed the biggest pee ever and had a big giggle, made stuffed snowman pee. Again I was stunned. This is when the reality dawned that this was not indeed my son but some replacement. I took him to his change table to look for the batteries. Finding none I replaced his diaper and sent him on his way downstairs. Since that is where he had been asking to go. No… he went to my bedroom and stood PATIENTLY by my dresser where I keep the stickers so that he could have one. I thought of how well they hid the batteries; you couldn’t even tell it wasn’t a real boy. I let him pick a sticker, which he took happily and then he did something that sealed the case. He asked for one for his sister! I gave him one and he raced downstairs happy and proud as punch to give it to her. No screaming, peeing AND sharing.

I wonder how long this boy will stay and when they will return my son to me. I’m hoping the experiments the aliens are carrying out will leave some residual robot boy behavior behind in Sam.

Okay, for those of you horrified by my toilet training methods. We aren’t really toilet training in the full sense. I don’t have an agenda (having been taught quite thoroughly by Kamryn that this won’t happen on my timetable no matter how much I want it to) and fully expect to be buying diapers until Sam starts college. We put him on the potty for 5 minutes whenever he is diaperless. That’s it. He used to scream to not have his diaper changed in the morning as well so it's not just the potty causing the screaming. He just doesn’t like not getting his way. The potty stop, which obviously isn’t his idea, isn’t helping reduce the decibel level around our home.

Repeating Myself

If you keep a journal long enough I guess, eventually you begin to repeat yourself. Bear with me, today is a special day. I'm all weepy.

Meredith - I've been following your blog and thought of you when I read this over - September could be late August. lol Get shopping! Not that you need much encouragement there. :)

The Weather Network here runs little clips of “weather events” that have occurred in recent history as a lead in from commercials. They run about a 15 sec clip accompanied with a month, year and place. A few weeks ago I caught one and I didn’t need the caption to immediately know the exact day it was taken. It showed blinding rain and winds. The kind of rain that make you pull over when driving because ALMOST nothing is important enough to risk forcing your way through. It was tagged with “Kitchener, Ontario” perhaps an hour from where Kamryn was born. I knew when it was because I drove, like a COMPLETE madwoman, for over 7 hours through that storm (admittedly it wasn’t coming down like a hurricane for the entire 7 hours but there were plenty of scary periods).

We’d had a late night the night before, a Thursday (oh if we only knew how long it would be before we would sleep properly again lol). Less then 10 days after being matched with a baby due in mid-August euphoria was high. We were due to make the 7 hour drive to ************* (just north of Big City) on Saturday to meet our potential birthfather who was flying in from England. We’d rented a car for the trip because we felt neither of our ancient beaters was up to the task. I was flittering valuable sleeping time away making lists of what we would need to bring with us and dragged myself to bed around midnight. I turned my cell phone off and left it sitting in the family room when I went up to bed.

The next morning I was up early and out the door. Tossed my cellphone in my bag, grabbed and umbrella cause the weather was icky and ran for the bus. Once the baby arrived I planned to take 11 months off work and really needed to buckle down and get my office, files, job organized for whoever was coming in behind me. Today was the day – having spent the previous week daydreaming, shopping and generally dreaming about impending mommyhood.

So I’m sitting on the bus, minding my own business and trying to plan out my day when my phone begins to ring. My cell phone NEVER rings. Almost no one, even today, has the number. I constantly forget to even turn it on. Figured it was Daniel with a last minute request for me. But no, it was “the birthmom.” I tried to keep things light as my mind panicked and raced over why she could be calling. They changed their mind? Birthfather didn’t want to meet us anymore? We shouldn’t come this weekend because it wasn’t convenient? I’m totally panicked when she says “congratulations, you’re a Mom.” Okay I lost it. I was crying and shaking and talking REALLY loudly (on a public bus mind you). Kamryn had been born at 3:18 am. Sarah, Kamryn’s birthmom had gone into labour at 11 pm but didn’t call because she figured it would take awhile and it was the middle of the night. When it became apparent that it wasn’t going to take a while she tried desperately to get a hold of us but of course my cell phone (her only direct link to us) was in our family room and off while I dozed upstairs.

I didn’t know what to do, I was halfway to work on an express bus (express busses only run one way; getting home on the bus at that time of day would literally take over an hour). The whole bus was clapping and congratulating me (once I hung up the phone and the world was starring at me, I had to explain to my fellow passengers) – I still get teary thinking about it. So I went to work and tried to call someone to come and get me. DANIEL had had knee surgery the month before and was in physic therapy (not that he could drive anyway but I thought I should at least tell him). His cell phone was off! I called my parents – no answer! In the rain, my mother had gone to drive my Dad to the golf course – silly man plays no matter what. I was bouncing off my office walls when a colleague told me to sit down and have a glass of water and think for a minute. Good advice. I called my girlfriend who lived almost an hour away and who promised to throw emergency baby supplies in her car and rush right over. Finally I got a hold of my mother who I didn’t tell what was going on (as I didn’t want her to get into a car accident). I just asked her to come and pick me up at work because I needed to go home. When she arrived I told her I would drive and to please move over I had some news for her. She cried when I told her.
When I caught up with Daniel at the physio therapists office he looked at me like I was speaking in a foreign tongue and told me to please wait he had to make an appointment for his next therapy session. He really didn’t get it. It was hilarious to see the non understanding on his face.

We had to get to ************* now, the weather was getting worse and we didn’t have a vehicle. We threw our partially packed stuff together and grabbed all the baby stuff we had collected over the week and headed for the rental agency to see what they could offer us. We had originally reserved and Escape but that was for the next day. On their lot they had a VW beetle and a Ford Explorer Sport Trac. Okay I though a Ford Explorer Sport Trac was and Ford Explorer with a sporty look to it. lol When they drove it around I about died and asked to take a look at the beetle – maybe we could make it work. Not a chance. So there we were with the Sport Trac – open bed in a driving rain storm. It was big enough inside the cab to get all the luggage inside though and we prayed that on our return – with a baby – that the weather would be nice enough to leave the enormous amount of stuff we were taking with us (we didn’t know how long we would be stuck there) in the back. All ready to go and DANIEL accidentally locked the keys in the truck. No problem you would figure since we hadn’t left the rental agency. Well you might think that but they didn’t have keys! We had to wait for someone from their central garage to come and help us. I was going nuts.

Once we got the truck opened it was a pretty uneventful trip to ************* – with the exception of the driving rain and my kamikaze driving skills. Took us about 8 hours with a stop for lunch and a pumping break for me (I was pumping in preparation for breastfeeding). We didn’t have a hotel because that was the same weekend the Pope was in Big City for World Youth Day and there wasn’t a hotel room to be found for miles. We got there just after 7 pm. Tiny hospital. Kamryn was waiting at the nurses station and EVERYONE was excitedly waiting for us. She was so perfect with an incredibly round head and just enough hair. She’d scratched the living daylights out of her little face though. Poor kid. I got to nurse her within 20 minutes of arriving and they had a room for us (arranged by Sarah who was amazing!) so no worries on the hotel. We stayed in the hospital 5 extremely stressful days while they worked out the paperwork (it was a mess but that’s a story for another day). On the day the hospital said no more we can’t keep you – the Ministry of Child and Social Services finally approved us as adoptive parents (totally last minute, we thought Kamryn was going to foster care and I must have cried all day). We left the hospital at 6pm and it took us 9 hours to drive home. Nothing like walking into a highway rest stop with a 5-day-old baby to get shocked looks from people (not that we had any choice). We had planned to drive and get as far away from ************* as Kamryn would let us and then stop. Although the last hour and a half was AWFUL (I HAD to drive as Daniel couldn’t. Problem was nor could Daniel nurse and that’s what she wanted) she let us get all the way home. Got home at 3 am with our precious baby. Can’t believe 4 years have gone by.

The Preschool is still standing!

Dropped Sam off at pre-school today. I actually went in to the school with them this morning as I had nothing to do at work anyways so why rush in. I was so proud of him. He really seems to like it there and I'm less nervous about him being booted. God he's adorable.

Kamryn gave me a long and running commentary yesterday evening on all the things Sam did "wrong." She is a geat spy and loves to tell on her brother which I'm thinking isn't a good thing. Regardless, nothing he did was a big surprise but none of it was all that egregious either. He didn't smack anyone and it seems he didn't scream the place down. Fingers crossed that today goes as well.

Pics for yesterday:

Not particularly interested in having his photo taken.



Very proud of the sticker on his wrist (his reward for using the potty before school).



His beloved "scoobag":

You guys make me blush...

Thanks for the kind and encouraging comments about my writing. I've always liked to write but never thought I was much good at it. This job doesn't help either because you write something and then 4 levels of people look at it and tear it apart for what's wrong with it. You really question your abilities after awhile although intellectually I know that no matter how perfect a speech I write is someone I answer to is ALWAYS going to think they know how to make it better because that is their job. They need to make it better to justify their paycheck. It's actually the last "level" that is the worst because that's the Minister's office - ummm.... shhhhh! don't tell on me but they ALWAYS make it worse. Sometimes their changes are so bad that I hope no one knows that I wrote the original text because I don't want people to think that I wrote that "schlop."

Okay I'll post the piece I wrote (although now I'm terrified you will all read it - I think most of you have already actually - and wonder what kind of drugs I'm smoking that I believe someone would actaully publish it and give me money.) Note: I know it's too long but figured I would let an editor tell me that - maybe this is a mistake? I could cut five things; there are a couple (not 5 but a couple) of things on the list that were just there to make it "25 things long". Also, it's been edited for a Canadian audience as I'm only sending it to Canadian publications as I'm not sure it fits a US audience all that well - it's a little too critical.

Last summer my family (my husband, 3 year-old daughter, 1 year-old son and I) drove to Winnipeg, Manitoba from Ottawa, Ontario. We thought we’d drive through the US on our little family adventure. I was dreading the journey. I survived.

13 days (7 days of which were spent at our destination)
2 provinces
5 states
1 Mazda Tribute Red/Grey
2 adults
2 toddlers
12 Provincial Highways
25 US Interstates/Highways
5 hotels
4 border crossings
3400 miles/5440 km
1 speeding ticket (not mine! somewhat deserved although I’m not sure hubby didn’t get tricked into it as the speed limit must have changed 6 times in 2 miles.)
12 fill-ups
145 gallons/549.67 L of fuel

Twenty-Five Things I Learned on the Road Trip from Hell:

1. Driving from sun-up until well past sundown for 6 solid days in a well equipped but smallish SUV with two kids and a cranky husband will not kill you.

2. Staying in various hotel rooms for two weeks with two toddlers and a cranky husband might just kill you. I still need to make an appointment with the doctor to assess what damage was done.

3. There are some super nice customs agents out there. i.e. the Canadian customs officer who helped us document the electronics that we owned and were bringing into the States. He told us that we were of “no interest” to customs agents (who are instead looking for terrorists older than 3 and 14 months old) and that if anyone gave us any problems to give them his badge number and he would “deal with them.”

4. There are some customs agents who need a boot to the head. The U.S. Customs guy who made my husband take the slice of roast beef out of the sub he had with him for lunch and throw it away because of the ban on bringing beef into the US. He quite sarcastically told me when I pointed out that my husband was going to eat it in about 15 minutes that if he wanted to drive back to Canada to eat it that would be fine. He claimed that rather than eating his sandwich my husband could throw it away thus infecting the entire US with mad-cow – which was of course our mad plan. Foiled again! He made it worse by condescendingly asking us if we had heard of the ban on “importing” beef into the US and informing us that if it were a cow younger than two years than it would be all right. Ugh! (just so you know I’m not biased the customs agent on our trip into Michigan was more than pleasant).

5. The quality of the hotel stayed in (and they ability of the bottom bed sheet to remained properly tucked in) is inversely proportional to how long you have to stay there. It is in no way related to price you are paying.

6. That no matter how good your kids are being in the back seat you should say nothing about it out loud because if you do chaos will reign for the remainder of the day.

7. That US interstates are peppered with road signs and billboards that can be an entertaining diversion on a very long car drive.

8. That Canadian highways have comparably almost no billboards or road signs and that is a welcome relief after days of starring at billboards.

9. That there seems to be an obsession with the purchase of fireworks in the US. This as evidenced from all the billboard advertisements i.e. buy one, get six free, and Fireworks Superstores we saw along the highway. I don’t get it. I’m not sure you can even buy fireworks here. If you can I have no idea where – maybe we need more billboards and less boring trees.

10. That if you drive for hours and hours perusing, via billboard, the different fast food joints at which you may enjoy a “delectable” meal that the moment you decide you need to stop for food, gas, potty break etc. ALL evidence that there are any restaurants, gas stations, rest stops etc. will vanish from the earth for the next several hours.

11. Fill-up in Gary, Indiana because after that there are no readily available gas stations until you are most of the way through Chicago.

12. Related to the above. Our truck can go almost 600 km (360 miles) on one fill-up (60 litres/16 U.S. gallons). We didn’t know that previously.

13. American rest stops (at least in the states we traveled through) are AMAZING, in good weather. I suspect they would definitely suck in nasty weather - nicely appointed parks where a family could picnic abounded. The inverse is true for Canadian rest stops which might explain a lot considering the amount of nasty weather we can have.

As we had good weather all but one day the US ones win, hands down. Of course, you can’t buy real food at the U.S. Rest Stops which are only stocked with vending machines. That isn’t great but at least the kids can run around outdoors and burn off some energy and as an option there are a gazillion fast food places just off the highway which is less true when traveling down the Trans Canada Highway.

14. I do not care if I NEVER EVER enter a MacDonald’s EVER again. Actually I do care so I should restate this – My life’s goal is to never enter a MacDonald’s ever again.

15. Never potty train an almost 3-year-old right before a road-trip. Talk about total meltdowns whenever a “nap” induced accident or near-accident occurred.(yes, my almost 3-year old has very high standards for herself. What this meant was every time my daughter awoke from a nap there was a meltdown that invoked memories of 3-Mile Island and Chernobyl. This doesn’t happen when she has slept in a bed. I don’t know why this is, but I am grateful.)

16. If you ask the previously mentioned 3-year old if they need to use the bathroom the will insist they do not have to until 2.7 seconds (+ or – 3 seconds) after you pass the exit for the Rest Stop or nearest convenient exit. Next Rest Stop 60 miles!

17. 3-year olds (notice a trend here; and I thought the one-year old traveler was going to be the challenge) get bored and stiff in the car and will regularly claim to need to use the potty whether they need to or not. If you listen and stop every time they request it, you will NEVER get where you are going. As evidenced by day 4 on the road where a short 7 ½ hours of driving took almost 12). A “bathroom stop” schedule dictated by Mom (confidence buoyed by the convenience of Pull-Ups) is a necessity. Pity that I didn’t figure out this simple point until day 6 of driving. Duh!

18. 3 year-olds should always travel in Pull-ups. A lesson that thankfully we didn’t need to be taught but were grateful common sense dictated. Day one was good but it went downhill from there.

19. Kids will always fall asleep 5 minutes before you need to stop for food, gas, the night, etc. They will of course wake up the MOMENT the vehicle ceases forward motion with their 5 minute nap leaving them either refreshed enough to party all night when you desperately want to sleep or refreshed enough not to want to fall asleep again but as cranky as and octogenarian with hemorrhoids the size of oranges.

20. The “Weather Channel” in the U.S. does not hold a candle to Canada’s “Weather Network”. I feel sorry for all Americans. My husband explains that Americans are more well rounded than Canadians and not as obsessed with every factoid and detail about the past, present and future weather for their current location and any other location in the country they may visit in the next 3 years.

21. Crazy people in some U.S. states ride motorcycles without helmets. Why would one do that? Wouldn’t the wind mess your hair up anyways? Not to mention what the pavement might do to it.

22. Eating somewhat nutritious foods in a real restaurant instead of fast food junk might be good for the children (if they actually ate said food) but certainly does nothing for the other dining patrons or Mom and Dad’s sanity. I sat in the car with my daughter during dinner on day 2 after being hit in the head with mashed potatoes and gravy. I sat in the car with my son on day 4 after he threw pretty much everything he was given to eat on the floor. I sat in the car with … notice a trend.

23. Cheerios are a wonderful and necessary tool when dealing with slow service. Always walk with Cheerios.

24. Duty Free shops in Canada are entirely civilized, clearly marked and conveniently located. Duty Free shops in the U.S. remain a complete mystery to me. We kept missing them and those we found (note we crossed the border 4 times) were these odd warehouses with counters at which you placed an order to be picked up MILES away when you got to the actual border (maybe this is just a North Dakota/Michigan thing)?

25. No matter how much of a great time you have had and no matter how nice people have been to you there is such a feeling of relief and serenity at crossing your own border, back into your own province and country.

I'm excited - Going for my first rejection letter!

Last summer I wrote a little piece about my summer vacation and posted it on some boards I frequent. On one of the boards someone commented that I could probably sell it. I was very flattered especially when someone else backed her up. Then I found out that the person who backed her up is a freelance writer and likely knew what she was talking about. She told me she would help me try to get it published if I would like. Well the nature of communication over a busy board meant that that idea kind of fizzled. She never responded to my post replying that I would love some help getting it published and I was too ...hmmm... shy, stupid, humble, nervous, incredulous ... pick a word... to pursue it any further but it's kind of danced on the outskirts of my consciousness for some time now. Then I read the "Devil Wears Prada." lol I've been inspired by a schlop (entertaining schlop) to actually follow through.

E-mail makes it easy. So I'm lining up a bunch of magazines that might publish something like my "piece" and I think I will send it out and see what happens. Nothing to lose. Won't cost me anything but my pride - not that there's much to damage there; I'm an amateur in every respect; the last English class I took was in Grade 13. Don't even have any university credits in English. What do I know about writing - other than speeches anyways (not that I know that much about speeches either). Wish me luck.

Well the school hasn't called me yet so that must be a good sign.

I’m supposed to be writing a speech. Kind of a good speech to. As part of my previous job, I headed “working end” of a negotiating team (by that I mean I had a BIG boss – a General actually – but he didn’t really do any negotiating, I did everything and then told him what had transpired) for a treaty between Britain and Canada. It was perhaps one of the most challenging tasks I have had in my career. I had some great advisors and some “not so great” advisors. The “not so great” advisors gave me and the rest of the team a huge headache. Things got REALLY rough. The British were being very reasonable; it was my own team I couldn’t control. Nothing like conducting internal and external negotiations at the same time. I got things to a 98% finished point and then left all the infighting on my own team because we adopted Sam and I got to take leave for almost a year. I wasn’t upset to leave it because at that point it was just annoying, I did want to find out what happened though. Today I’m supposed to be writing the speech our Minister will give when he signs the treaty in a couple of weeks. Too cool. I feel like a pair of bookends.

I’m sitting here not thinking about the speech much at all.

Today was Sam’s first day of summer camp — in reality his first day of pre-school. I’ve worried about it since last week. Worried he wasn’t at all ready and that this was all a huge mistake. Tied my stomach in complete knots.

He is going three days a week from 9 - 11 30. I figured if I sent him to camp this summer he could start with his big sis. She could help him adjust to the new place and people then in the fall when he has to go by himself it will be easier on him. They only take two 2-year olds a class; all the other kids must be 2 1/2 or older. So he is the youngest.
I'm honestly worried that I will get a call in a week or two asking to refund my money because they can't handle him - how's that for awful.
As you all know the poor kid tantrums often, regularly and for LONG periods of time (hour long screaming tantrums are the norm). His language skills although developing aren't where they should be so oftentimes we have no idea what he is saying which is a real source of frustration for him. He uses real words you just have to guess what they are because his articulation is so off. He is incapable of sharing. When he doesn't get what he wants he just hauls back and smacks whoever the "offender" may be (oddly though if the child is smaller/younger than him he will allow himself to get beaten up). He doesn't really understand schedules (i.e. if he is doing something he likes he doesn't understand why he should have to stop and do something else). He is convinced that if he screams long and loud enough he will get whatever he wants; not working, he can scream louder. He is EXTREMELY persistent.
We NEED him to go to pre-school in September - partially for his language skills and partially as a child care fix (he will only go two mornings a week but that fills a big hole).
I keep telling myself that he can't be the most difficult little boy they have ever dealt with (he's the most difficult little boy *I* have ever met though; loveable but a whole lot of work). It doesn’t help that friends and strangers alike don’t hesitate to stop and comment to me on what a handful he seems to be. I keep telling myself they are professionals and will be able to handle him. Still my stomach was COMPLETELY tied in knots.
This morning went well though – the pre pre-school part. Only one short tantrum when I wanted him to sit on the potty and he panicking that he was missing some once in a lifetime moment somewhere else refused to sit. Potty training is NOT going to go well. Lol He’s always positive that when I put him on the potty that that is the moment when a marching band throwing candy and giving away free toys MUST be marching through the living room. Anyway back to this morning.
I had an icky “ovulation” night. Much pain, no sleep. So the decision to go into work a little late was an easy one to make. I would have called in sick outright but I didn’t work most of last week because of child care problems and my boss was kind enough to comp me the time. Kamryn got herself up and dressed and after only a modicum of protest “allowed” me to comb her hair by which time Sam was awake and raring to go. Daniel took care of him. Both kids were fed and Sam pottied (eventually!) and dressed before 8:30. Downstairs to get ready to go and both kids are too excited over their backpacks. Geez, if I got this excited over my briefcase every morning I would NEVER make my bus. Sam is using a “new” (he’s had it for awhile I just never took it out for him before) “Thomas” backpack. He gets so excited over anything Thomas that as a casual observer you might mistake him as having a seizure. The other challenge was to keep him from ripping out his snack and eating it right there. I got both kids sport sippy cups last night because Sam is completely incapable of drinking out of a cup – he just wears whatever he is drinking because he has no patience to sip slowly. Both of them are very excited over their new sippy cups. It’s the highlight of preschool for them.
Got some pictures taken – huge challenge because I gave Sam a sticker for going potty and that was all he could focus on at the moment, that and the stupid backpack. We actually left for school with a reasonable cushion. Halfway there we pulled even with the last express bus downtown from our place and decided to bail on Daniel and grab it rather than take the city bus which is adequate but “icky” (full of all of God’s creations not all of whom use deodorant). So Daniel took the kids in on his own.
I called to nag him the moment I got to the office and he reported that drop off went fine. Sam took off the moment Daniel put him down inside the school – off to play happily in the sand box with Bruce, one of Kamryn’s friends. Poor Kamryn was a little lost as Jordan is away on vacation so she was best-friendless. I’m sure she adjusted just fine though; she’s a social little kid. Daniel warned the director about Sam’s “nature.” I hope he does well, doesn’t melt down or smack anyone. I hope he had a blast and I can’t wait to get the “pick-up” report from Daniel which should come in about a half-hour. School is just letting out now. Please don’t let them kick him out.

I’m feeling surprisingly emotional about his venture out into the world. I find I typically don’t get as nostalgic over Sam as I do over Kamryn. It might be because the experiences with him tend to be “BTDT” experiences or it might be his rough and tumble nature and the fact that he exhausts me so there isn’t much room for nostalgia. This morning though I felt just as teary as I felt when Kamryn embarked on her first day of preschool. Today was all about him and I really felt it. My baby is taking his first steps into the world on his own (albeit watched over by his sister). Lord, help the world. lol