I’m a baby

Yesterday was a bit of a mess up.

It started on Monday with a phone call asking if I wanted to buy a school uniform for Heidi because the uniform shop would be open at the Pre-Prep school on Wednesday morning. ‘No thanks’ says I, ‘we are getting hand-me downs’. I think it was nice that they rang but glad I don’t have to drive out of my way to pick up the uniform and isn’t it nice that it is such a caring school Heidi will be at next year.

Later on Monday I did the girls 3 week picture schedules up, checking my Google calendar to see what was on when so their schedules could be accurate.

I told my husband he could take the car to work on Wednesday thinking that I just needed to walk Annie to school and Heidi to early intervention and then preschool – all three places are very close to our home.

We had our usual morning disasters on Wednesday morning, but managed to get to school on time despite the arguments and distractions. I’m standing up at Annie’s classroom talking to the other parents when another Mum asks ‘is that Heidi running out the gate’. Yes, yes it was. Heidi was determined to go to her hydrotherapy session at early intervention and if I wasn’t going to leave straight away then she was going without me. :: sigh :: Thankfully my yell of ‘Heidi stop’ worked and she came back.

One of the Mums asks when Heidi will be doing her Pre-Prep transition. I’m not sure I say but it is soon… and I make a mental note to check my Google calendar later to find out when.

Annie’s teacher was on yard duty so I felt comfortable leaving before the bell rang and went with Heidi to walk to the early intervention centre. We took a slight detour via the grocery store to get Mummy a Pepsi Max, caffeine being the cure for all ills, including absconding children and breakfast for Heidi being that she had refused to eat earlier, but all she wanted was a lollypop and mean Mummy said no. We walk on to the intervention centre with Heidi being very upset about the lack of lollypop breakfast.

Get to the centre, Heidi is excited about the hydrotherapy session (she loves swimming) and even though we are early the staff are in the pool area getting ready. Except the teacher looks at me with surprise… ‘Is Heidi going to her Pre-Prep Transition session this morning?’…. Ummm thats not today is it.. panic as I try to access my google calendar through my mobile phone… yes it is today. I look at the time, 30 minutes until it starts.

Despite all the reminders and prompts – the phone call from the school about uniforms, the schedule making/calendar checking, the mum at Annie’s school asking about transitions, I still hadn’t remembered.

Right I gather Heidi and bags ‘If we leave now we can get the train and hopefully make it on time, only 1 stop after all’. No no, the teacher shoots down that idea, I will drive you over… above and beyond, always above and beyond with the early intervention centre staff, amazing people one and all. Heidi is excited to be driving in a different car and I try to verbally prepare her for going to transition class, making sure to emphasis it will be quiet as the last pre-prep session we attended was very noisy and has made a bad impression on Heidi.

Once at the school Heidi plays quietly in a room she is familiar with from previous early intervention sessions there. She happily finds her name tag and puts it on, I get her settled in the classroom and tell her Mummy is going for coffee and will be back soon – our little ritual with occasions like this.

Off I wander to local coffee shop and enjoy a skinny latte and slice of mudcake (850 calories OH MY GOD! I ate salad for the rest of the day). I work some more on my new cross stitch project – Evenweave! what a lovely stitching experience that is, I’ve started my secret stitching project on Aida but once that is finished I’m all Evenweave all the way baby.

but I digress… and get sidetracked and all that jazz.

90 minutes later and it is time to collect Heidi, back to the school and Heidi is very glad to see me. I tell her we are going to catch the train home and I will get her McDonalds for lunch. ‘The outside one’ Heidi asks, ‘yes the outside one’ I say…sidetrack again…. .the inside McDonalds is in the shopping centre food court and it is always very noisy, we like the outside one best because it is quiet, has a smaller, safer (ie less children) playground….

One of the other mothers overhears and offers to give Heidi and I a lift back to the McDonalds so we don’t have to catch the train. Heidi’s escape out the school gates at Annie’s school is still vivid in my mind so I gratefully accept the offer because absconding children and railways are not a good combination.

For the next 15 minutes all Heidi does is repeat ‘the outside one?’. We arrive at the outside McDonalds and the other mum drops us off. Inside Heidi starts listing what she wants, nuggets, chippies, apple juice, toy. I order her a happy meal and Heidi stands at the counter listing what she wants until the meal (and toy) arrive. We go sit, Heidi eats, I assemble the toy which was far more complicated than my brain was prepared to deal with by that stage. The toy keeps falling apart, Heidi is finished eating and wants to play in the playground but also wants to lie down in my lap. Time to go home and find some sticky tape to stick the toy together as Heidi is sure it will work then.

Back home and I call PreSchool and tell them Heidi wont be there for the afternoon session. I’m conflicted about that decision, perhaps the routine of PreSchool would have eased Heidis anxiety but then maybe the social stimulation would have been too much when she was already overwhelmed… so far we have avoided tears and screams and the harder to control physical stims and I wish to keep it that way. I worried on that all night until I took Heidi to her PreSchool session the follow day (today) and found out that her regular teacher is away and their is a different / new teacher in the classroom. So glad then that I had kept Heidi home.

But back to the afternoon at home, we watched Pokemon (first movie) twice. Heidi wrapped in her blankie, chewing her fingers again, wanting milk and cuddles. Not much talking.

We get Annie from her School at 3.30pm. Heidi sticks close to me the whole time, anxious on the walk there that we will get lost, despite walking the same way every day this year. One of Annie’s classmates runs off down the oval instead of walking to the car with his Mum, Heidi gets distressed that he will get lost. We walk home – after making sure the classmate was in fact going to his Mum. Home, more clinging.

Bedtime and Heidi is a baby, ‘I’m not a school girl, I’m a kinder girl, I’m a baby”. This was a very very bad week to decide to try taking her out of pull ups at night and into underpants…. although so far successful. 10pm Heidi is still awake, her bed is too squishy, too cold, she needs more cuddles, wants to sleep in our bed. Eventually she falls asleep in the corridor, wrapped in her blankie, close enough to see the lights from the loungeroom without us spotting her.

1.30am, Heidi awake and going to the toilet, even in her sleep haze ‘I’m a baby, not a school girl’. 6am baby Heidi is in my bed, headbutting me and talking in baby babble, not words.

Now she is at PreSchool, with the different teacher but I’m hoping that being at PreSchool, being the Kinder girl today will help. Would yesterday have been different if I’d remembered earlier about PrePrep transition, I’m not sure. Somethings would have gone more smoothly, we would have had the car instead of my husband, but I don’t know if Heidi’s anxiety levels would have been less or not.