Once I decided I was going back to school or work, I started my preschool hunt. I viewed a few programs, got some recommendations. We went a toured one preschool at a ginormous church and at first I thought it was neeeehhhh. Laina was excited though. We had to immediately go book bag, nap mat, lunch bag shopping. The first day of school rolls around. I get the bigger kids to school and then take her. She runs to her class, hangs her belongings up, and off to the classroom she goes. Not even a goodbye. I'm feeling confident until the phone rings two hours later and its the classroom aid telling me she just stopped crying. TWO Hours..REALLY? Donnie and I go to get her and she is sitting at a table with other kids doing some homework and doesn't want to leave. The kid has never ever ever been away from me...ever. I figure it was just first day stuff, she will be ok. The next few days and its the same thing. Over the next week it progressively gets worse. She goes from two hours of crying to crying from 930-230, won't eat there, wont go to the bathroom there. Everybody assures me it will get better. If this is what they call better, they are crazy. We try multiple things. Our first intervention attempt was me staying the entire day at school with her to try to get her comfortable and show her how fun this is going to be. We make some major strides. At one point she got in the front of the classroom on her own and showed her classmates all her pictures that I had brought in to try to make this transition easier. It goes downhill from there. We try other things like late starts, a few hours at a time then building up to full day, half day, nothing is working. At almost two months of this, Donnie says he is done. This just isn't healthy and for me to put her through this at my own benefit of no longer being a stay at home mom is selfish of me. i never really understood how fantastic of a program this was until I stayed the day with her. I was amazed at what they taught and was devastated to pull her out of the program, but I realized this just wasn't the time. Liana had been doing gymnastics for a few months and was doing very well and loved it. The week she started preschool, she broke down in the middle of gymnastics class and that's where this all started. My witty, cute, so lovable child became this clingy, severe separation anxiety kid who had to be attached to me at all times. She didn't even sleep through the night on her own anymore at this point. It was horrible. She ended up quitting gymnastics in November when I couldn't get to her do it without me. Again, I was devastated. One of my girls has to be an amazing gymnast. It's a requirement. Randomly at times when I was running errands for about an hour at at time, she would stay home with dad. When I would return I would get the " I didn't even miss you!" Fantastic Liana...so glad you didn't miss me. I have a really great friend with a little girl that's near Liana's age. Her other daughter is Zuri's BFF. Liana decides to tag along on a few play dates and goes home with her. Big strides here, this is BIG! She gets to the point where she loves to go with my friend and this is helping us alot.
Zuri really loves cheer leading and gymnastics. Our gymnastics gym has a private cheer leading group that starts at 3 years old and we decided to allow Zuri to do it. I had no intentions of allowing Liana to do it bc I had spent that last 5 months trying to get her back int o the gym for gymnastics. The original deal was when she showed us that she can do Pre-K this fall and go a great job that we would sign her up. Its expensive to do cheer. I'm not going to lie. I debated and debated and debated some more about even letting Zuri do it. Zuri goes to cheer clinic to learn a simple cheer and some jumps. She loves it! The next day at placement clinics, Zuri has a little meltdown bc her friend didn't show up. In the middle of her tears, Liana decides she is going to try out. HUH?? Liana goes out there in front of everybody, with a group of another few girls and does the cheer. Wait....How does she know the cheer? She did and she rocked it. Both girls make the squad. Again, I'm hesitant at this point bc of the costs. At our gym, in order to do cheer you have to do gymnastics. TCA cheers are very gymnastics based. I repeatedly tell Liana she has to go to gymnastics the next day if she wants to be a cheerleader. This is her test. Her cheer fate is decided then. She rides with another friend to gymnastics and meets me there. I get her hair in a pony and off she goes! I could not believe it! She actually went in and strutted her stuff like she didn't take a 5 month break and even got a promotion! Several moms notice she went out there and see her giving me her cheesy thumbs up every few minutes letting me know shes ok! I am texting away at this point and taking pictures bc I am so excited she actually did it. Liana is back and it is sooooo very exciting.Its been a tough year with this kid!
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