Now he did it

This afternoon while I was out spending child-free time at the grocery store during Emmie's nap, Jack's teacher called and spoke with Josh. It seems Jack and his two best friends at school had to pay a little visit to the principal's office.

My first thought was to laugh. I mean really, they're 4. Unless they're burning down the school, what could possibly merit a visit with the principal? But then I snapped into Serious Mom mode and asked what happened.

As I heard from Josh and then from Miss A later at pickup was that the three boys were being loud and talking and not listening during Spanish class. Senorita had had it with them and Miss A happened to be sitting in during Spanish as well and even she couldn't get them to stop fooling around.

So she sent them to the principal's office. Adios, amigos.

No seriously, they went to the principal's office. Which I doubted was a proper punishment considering they probably thought it was cool and not something they should be afraid of.

And of course, Miss A said Jack was smiling the whole time. This kid seriously either has a nervous smile or nothing really does bother him.

He ran out of school and announced excitedly that he went to the principal's office and told me her name and the name of the assistant principal. Apparently they're all BFFs now.

Under the heading of "Maybe He Gets It," Miss A did say Jack's behavior was much-improved after the visit down the hall and he was the only one of the three boys who got to go out for recess. Whoo hoo?

I could chalk it up to spring fever, considering it was 60 degrees and sunny today for the first time in four months, but after yesterday's behavior report that's just not possible. Yesterday he was flinging yogurt at one of those same boys in the lunchroom. Yep, I have the kid who starts the food fight.

Unfortunately I imagine this is just the first of many, many principal visits in Jack's future. Is there a scrapbooking layout for this? I want to remember it in all its glory.

Head case

Biggest take-away from our conference with Jack's teachers last week? We have an almost-4-year-old boy who likes to fool around and get attention.

It's not like they told us anything we haven't already heard. He needs reminders to stay on task. He can't keep himself quiet and he can't keep his body still. He doesn't take a nap and he can't lie there quietly for the half-hour when everyone else does.

But you know what? HE'S (almost) FOUR. For the love of God, it's preschool. It's not like he's preparing for the SATs here. Of course I didn't say that to his teachers, because I get it. He's disrupting other kids and they can't spend all their time focusing on him. And that's not fair to anyone.

But in the end, I think it's just Jack being Jack. He wanders around here at home. He has never been a fan of using his inside voice. He's spent the last two years hip-checking his sister and not showing remorse about it. He rarely takes a nap on the weekends and he's definitely not quiet for a half-hour in his room.

When we picked him up from school today, his teacher said he had an awesome day and she couldn't believe how great he was. Apparently, the key to good behavior is a head injury, such as the one he got last night.

If you follow me on Twitter, you know we took Jack to the ER because he fell and hit his head at the pool, complained he was going to throw up an hour later and fell asleep in the car on the way home.

Josh had taken Jack and Emmie and I stayed home with Maeve, so I got the information secondhand, but apparently he was walking away from the hot tub area and the floor was super slippery and when he fell backward, the back of his head hit the raised tile ledge around the hot tub. Josh said he cried for about 10 minutes, and was fine. They went to dinner afterward and during dinner, he ate some pasta but then didn't want his pizza and started crying that he felt like he was going to throw up. After he fell asleep in the car, Josh started to suspect maybe these things were all related.

After they got home and he told me what happened, I called the pediatrician's service and the doctor on call told us we should probably take him to the ER just to be safe. He was sobbing that his tummy hurt and had a bump the size of an egg on the back of his little skull. We had our awesome neighbor (and longtime reader), Chris, come over to stay with a sleeping Emmie and an awake-and-ready-to-party Maeve and headed out to Children's Hospital.

After bathing ourselves and Jack in hand sanitizer several times during the 25-minute wait in urgent care, a doctor pronounced him "likely fine" and told us kids can actually puke twice after a head injury before they even think about giving a CT scan. Who knew?

Jack of course stopped crying the minute we left the house and was all smiles for the nurses and doctor. He gave them all a play-by-play of the events of the night and made everyone laugh with his detailed descriptions. Thanks to our (recently changed and expensive) health insurance, that little excursion set us back a couple hundred bucks. Awesome!

After returning home with the doc's permission to send him off to school in the morning, he finally got to sleep around 9:30 p.m. We were instructed to wake him once an hour to make sure he wasn't concussed and since I am awake multiple times per night to feed Maeve, I just went in and checked on Jack as well. Of course, he was up and ready for the day at 6:15 this morning. Seriously, does this child never sleep in? Does he have a secret alarm I am not aware of?

But apparently, his tiredness made for some docile behavior today. And lucky me, because we dealt with all that nonsense and didn't know how he would be today, Josh didn't fly out as scheduled and worked at home today. Yay! A one-day reprieve from single-parenting! And one more day to sleep in! I mean not that I don't love having my husband around, but let's face facts: my sleep is more important than anything right now.

But he left tonight and I was on my own for bathtime and bedtime. And let me tell you, at one point, everyone but me was crying. And I just had to laugh because there was nothing else to do. I came downstairs with Maeve to find an empty wine rack -- and that's when I started to cry.

Towing the line

I'm just all about reaching out to my readers this week, it seems.

So. Jack. Love of my life, smart, witty, amusing, adorable, frustrating, loving Jack. Mr. Soon-to-be 4 Years Old is having an issue at school. He doesn't want to take a nap. But the rules are the 3- and 4-year-olds either take a nap or have to lie quietly on their cots for the duration of nap time, which is about an hour.

Now Jack, he's not so much about the nap. Definitely not about the being quiet either. He's actually slept three times since September and has remained quiet maybe half the time. This week, things have gotten a little more, shall we say, challenging.

When he came home Monday, he announced, "Mommy, I did not take a nice nap and I wasn't listening. I was standing on my head on my cot!" Imagine that said with a huge smile and a gleeful yell. Mmhmmm. OK then.

Yesterday, I received a phone call at 2 p.m. from Jack's teacher.

"Hi, this is Miss A. from school," she said.

"Hi Miss A.," I replied cautiously.

"I have Jack here with me and he was being so loud at nap time that we had him go out and sit in the hall," she said. "Then he was so loud in the hall that three other teachers had to come out and tell him to be quiet. So I took him in the classroom with me (the kindergartners in his class work on reading when the younger kids nap) and he was disruptive in there as well. I thought a call to you might be helpful. Would you like to talk to him?" she asked.

"Put him on," I said with a sigh.

I hear a little voice.

"Mommy! I was not listening at nap!" he said with pride in his voice. "Now I have to go home early. Oh, and Mommy! I lost my shoes!"

I remain calm and say, "Jack, you need to listen RIGHT NOW. You tell Miss A. you are sorry and you will try harder and you stop yelling and being loud right now."

Miss A. takes the phone back and says she did not tell him he had to go home early and that his shoes are not lost, they were in his locker. She thanks me and says she'll see me at pickup after school.

She waited until after school to request a conference with herself, the other teacher in his class and Josh and me. Awesome. My almost-4-year-old needs a formal conference because he can't keep his shit together for an hour at nap time.

The other issue is that he laughs when disciplined or when he has an altercation with another student. As in, if he hits someone (which I think is pretty rare) he smiles while the other kid stands there crying. Miss A. says this upsets the other child even more because Jack doesn't show any remorse. We certainly see this behavior at home with Emmie, so no surprise there. Another example: he headbutted Maeve last night and I got in his face and yelled about as loud as I could and he laughed hysterically the whole time.

Not sure what the hell is going on, but the fact he shows no empathy or remorse is a little disconcerting. Most kids I know cry or get scared when faced with that kind of yelling -- not mine. And he's always been like this. I remember him laughing and running from timeout when he was 2 and not caring at all when I raised my voice.

So this leads to two questions:
1. Is it an outrageous expectation for an almost-4-year-old to remain quiet and lie still for an hour? What does your school do about nap time for your kids?

2. How does your child react to yelling or punishments? And should I be concerned about the lack of remorse?

Thoughts, please!

Montessori? Yes, please!

I can't say enough great things about Jack's school and the Montessori curriculum they have there. He's flourished and matured, becoming so much more helpful and curious since school started in September.

I think for kids like Jack, who like to explore and figure things out and do activities on their own terms in their own time frames, it's an ideal program. For him, it's been a great fit. He adores both his teachers, loves art and gym class and is constantly asking us what the Spanish word is for things he encounters. The class he loves the most however? Drama. How ridiculously cute is THAT?

He's friends with both girls and boys, 5-year-olds as well as the 3- and 4-year-olds, and is in the diverse urban school setting we always imagined when we said we were raising our kids in the city.

In short, it's the perfect school. Made even more perfect by the fact it's a neighborhood school. And it's free. How ya like them apples? Free Montessori. I swear to God, it's better than winning the lottery. We'll send three kids there and pay nothing (well, except out insanely high property taxes, but still). The private Montessori schools in our area expect parents to cough up $15,000 per year. So we'd be looking at $45,000 PER YEAR just to educate our kids.

Tonight, Jack fed me this little tidbit he learned in school today.

"Mommy, Vincent Van Gogh is an artist and he paints flowers," he said proudly.

My 3.5-year-old just schooled me in some rudimentary art history. That's worth every penny we pay in taxes and then some. Seriously? I still can't believe our luck.