It’s fall. Where did summer go?! Per my previous post, this was our first summer with Q in organized sports. I use the term “organized” loosely. It was herding cattle. We did soccer which I previously wrote about and also put him in t-ball. If at any point you think soccer is bad/a pain, just put your 4 year old in t-ball. It was literally the biggest waste of 5 weeks… and we skipped the last 2. They line up “the team” and every single kid takes a turn batting. This is also dependent on if they actually want to be there or not which most of them didn’t. I don’t think half of them had even picked up a bat before that first day. Quinn does not respond well to waiting his turn so this didn’t even remotely hold his attention. Lesson learned. Between activities, spending time at the lake and God knows what else, I feel like we blinked and summer was over.

The title of this blog is a slightly over-dramatic since Q hasn’t actually “left”. He is in his first year of Pre-K. But the day I walked him into school and he said, “BYE MOM!”, it felt like I was leaving him at college. I’m not an overly emotional person but for some reason that day I teared up. Maybe it was putting on his school uniform for the first time…. Or taking the traditional “First Day of School” pictures…. Or maybe it was when I was walked him into school, grabbed for his hand and he pushed it away and said, “Mom! Don’t do that. It’s embarrassing.” The picture above is him walking ahead of me. As if to not let the others know he’s with his “mommy”. It’s fine. No big deal. I only gave you life!! On the flip side, I’d rather him disregard my feelings and walk ahead of me than be the kid the was sitting on the ground saying, “I’m NOT going in there… and you can’t make me!” There’s something wrong with me because all I thought about in that moment was, “You’re seriously going to let your daughter sit on the pavement with a skirt on? Gross…”

We’re still having sleeping issues. I don’t get it. The kid can function on little to no sleep and it’s been like that since the day he was born. A few months back he finally started going to bed by himself. This was a win in our household. But don’t worry! He still wakes up 1 to sometimes 5-6 times a night. The worst is when he wakes up in the morning bright-eyed and bushy -tailed and we have to suppress the urge to tell him it’s all his fault that mommy and daddy are crabby and tired. I literally feel like this at least 65% of every morning.

I do sympathize with him on one thing: He’s going through the “I’m scared” phase. I can’t really say much about this because I was a big baby until I was…. oh…. probably 8. Ask my mother for confirmation on this but I feel like I was that old the way she describes it. Q has an extremely vivid imagination so when he wakes up screaming from bad dreams and tells us things like, “There’s eyes on the door…” or “There’s little people who come out of the wall at night…” it’s hard to get TOO upset with him. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time I want to say, “That’s nice. Go back to bed.” But I’m sure I would’ve had some childhood post-traumatic stress had my own parents done that to me.

I realize that some may say (or have already over-stepped their boundaries and already said it), “Well… maybe it’s because he’s an only child…” My response? The kid has at least 4 different personalities. That overall counts for at least 2 kids. Until he starts asking for a driver or wonders where his nightly turndown service is, I think we’ll be just fine as a family of 3.

Until next time.