uncomfortable.

Lately we've been feeling lots of discomfort. All three of us. Preschool is hard. On all three of us. I'd been calling what Clay & I've been feeling as heartbreaking, but I've revised and am trying to keep perspective. Heartbreaking is watching a child or spouse suffer from a terminal illness, or not being able to afford to care for or feed your child. Lots of things in this world are really heartbreaking. Leaving your child at preschool while she cries for Mama or Daddy is not one of them. It's just uncomfortable. Luci feels uncomfortable at preschool. She's safe, with lots of fun things to do and kids to play with. But she's uncomfortable because she's used to Mom & Dad always being there.

Tuesday was okay. She cried as soon as we turned the car off in the parking lot. The preschool director (a neighbor of ours) called at 10a to say Luci was walking around in a crouched position saying, "poops, poops". But a diaper change revealed no poops, so they put her on the potty. She didn't like that. I told the director she probably just knew she had to go but that they could leave her diaper on. We didn't hear back, so we went a bit early to sneak a peak at her on the playground to see how she was. She was at the fence line, looking out all forlorn like. Clay couldn't stomach more than 3 minutes of this so he went out to scoop her up. Miss L said she was teary during a diaper change, but overall did pretty well. One thing Clay & I noticed as we dropped her off was that her cubby now had her photo on it...the saddest lookin Luci photo you've ever seen. It made us uncomfortable.

Clay left Tuesday afternoon, and since then Luci has been periodically bursting into tears proclaiming "miss Daddy, miss Daddy, no Daddy work, miss Daddy". She's always missed him while he's on trips, but has been easily distracted and comforted...except for the last two days...NOTHING I do comforts her. I brought out a Daddy shirt to hug, made a bear into a special Daddy bear (this worked for a few hours), brought out the photo book of Dad, called Dad, but nothing has comforted her. This inconsolable missing makes us uncomfortable...and lucky me, I'm probably the least uncomfortable.

Today the tears started almost as soon as she woke up. Miss Daddy, miss Daddy. She cried while sitting in 'Daddy's pillows' (his side of the bed) watching a show through my entire shower. She cried through breakfast. We 'rocked a baby' for 5 minutes with the forbidden baa all cradled and wrapped in a blanket in a way we haven't done since she was like 6 months old. I loved it (who doesn't love to snuggle their baby), but found it very disturbing at the same time. She's clearly uncomfortable. She knew it was a school day, and said 'no school' a few times. But she was excited to put her socks on, and carry her lunch box to the car. But when we reached the parking lot she started crying, and cried all the way into her class (with Mama getting empathetic looks from every other mom we passed), into her teacher's confident arms. I warned Miss A it had been a rough morning and that the director could call me on my cell phone, but she scooped Luci right up & told me she'd be fine. And I was off. But very uncomfortable!

I went about my business, prepared for the call which came at 10:15a. I could hear Luci in the background sobbing "see Mama, see Mama". Luckily I had just picked up my final item at the grocery store, so I headed to the check out & drove as fast as I legally could to school. When I got there I went to Luci's class room...I could see her, but she didn't see me...and she wasn't crying. They said she had stopped just after the call and that she'd been fine since. I snuck out & told them to feel free to call if the tears started again...and thanked them for calling in the first place. About 11:15a I got another call...asking if I meant to pack strawberries in her lunch or was she no longer allergic...OOPS!! Poor thing melted when they took away her strawberry (which I made a big deal of telling her about this AM as I was packing her lunch)! I said, no, strawberries no longer caused eczema breakouts, and profusely apologized! Poor Luci & poor Miss A & Miss L...as if the morning hadn't been hard enough already! UGH!

I went a bit early to pick her up to watch her on the playground through the window and she seemed to be fine climbing on the equipment and going down the slide. When Miss L brought her into the pick up room the big frown was back & I could see tears brimming, but I promptly gave her a hug & high five and told her what a good job she did at school today...and she responded by smiling. We gave Miss L a high five on the way out, and although Luci did say "miss Daddy, Daddy work" she didn't cry. And she's been fine since then. We looked at her artwork from the day and she's now watching a show before nap time, excited to wake up in order to go pick up Aunt Baylee & Grandma Myrtle the Great from the airport this afternoon.

So, we made it through another week of school. And it was uncomfortable, but life often is uncomfortable. I can get through this transition just keeping this in mind. The biggest rewards of my life have come after a period of discomfort. I don't regret any decision that I've ever made that required me to stretch beyond my comfort zone. My problem is not knowing if it is necessary for a 2 year old to learn this lesson...or if that is even the lesson we're departing on her by forcing the preschool issue. Ahhh the uncomfortable joys of parenting...