My boy is not like me [Parental rambling, feel free to skip]

[oloriel]

Saw a Travel Bug parked in front of Felix' Kindergarten yesterday. Thought I'd memorised the number, but parts of it had slipped my mind by the time I came home. I really should've pointed it out to Felix, who has an indefinite memory for numbers and number/letter combinations. Oh well. It was a local car, and it stands to reason that the owner either works at the Kindergarten or has a kid there, so I'll likely see it again.

- - -

Speaking of Kindergarten, Felix has been going there for almost a month now. It's been a mixed bag. He often didn't want to let me go (perfectly normal, I know - especially in this early phase), kicked up a fuss about trifles (he does that at home, too, so perfectly normal as well), or told me he didn't want to go there in the first place. (Cue feelings of guilt - technically, he doesn't need to go to Kindergarten, seeing how I'm a stay-at-home mom anyway, but I want him to go there so he learns the soft skills we at home can't teach him - you know, getting along with others even if they may behave stupidly sometimes, cooperating, dealing with frustration, communicating with people who don't know your whims already etc. He doesn't need the intellectual input (which seems to be what Kindergarten's often reduced to these days - mostly negatively, a.k.a. "Our Kindergartens don't prepare kids for the international job market well enough!" but also, just this morning, positively, a.k.a. "Kids who start Kindergarten early are more intelligent than kids who stay at home longer!") - anyway, he isn't there for the intellectual input, in which he's already ahead of his age group, but for the social input. But of course it hurts when your three-year-old tells you "Let's not go there today" and you worry that it's all too much for your little snowflake... )

The "Let's not go to Kindergarten today" generally happened in the morning, and no matter how much I told Felix that hey, Kindergarten was way much more fun than staying at home while mommy cleans up or works on the computer or is otherwise too busy to play with Felix, he insisted that he didn't want, and didn't want to let me go when we were there. I assumed that part of it was because he was still tired, which would have been perfectly understandable because his sleep schedule is... highly questionable, to say the least, but that's a complicated issue I'm struggling with anway.

Yesterday: A complete turn-around.

Now this is going to get a bit circumlocutionary, for which I apologise, but I feel I need to analyse the situation.

The odds were actually against us yesterday. Felix had gone to bed late, and woke up early (shortly after 7 - he often sleeps until 9 or even later if you let him). He didn't fall asleep again, and as I have to get up at 7:30 anyway if I want to get both kids dressed and have breakfast before it's time to drop Felix off at Kindergarten, we eventually all got up. Felix declared, as usual, that he didn't want to go to Kindergarten. I, as usual, told him how much fun Kindergarten could be.
Then, the miracle happened: Felix emended his refusal to "Let's not go to Kindergarten yet."
I, not even realising the enormity of what had happened, said "Of course not, dear, we're having breakfast first."
We had breakfast. And even before Felix had finished his marmalade sandwich, he suddenly declared, "Felix wants to go to Kindergarten now."
Yes: "Felix wants to go to Kindergarten."

I told him we had to finish breakfast, and then I'd pack his lunchbox, and then we'd go to Kindergarten. And that was what we did. When we had arrived, I helped him out of his boots and into his slippers, and Felix said "Now Mom can go home."
I thought, Wow, WTF? but said "Yes, Mom is going to go home after I dropped you off at the Katzengruppe." (Felix' Kindergarten group is, fittingly, the cat group. They other groups are hedgehogs, bears and crocodiles.)
His reply was the usual, "'Katze' fängt mit 'K' an!" ("Cat begins with a 'C'!"). The rest was completely unusual: He rushed into the room, said "Hello Felix" to his Kindergarten teachers, grabbed a puzzle, put it down across the table from a little girl who was already playing with another puzzle (without even yelling that the "other child", or the Kindergarten teacher who was helping her with the puzzle, weren't allowed to look at him!). The teacher asked whether he wanted to tell me goodbye, and he said "Bye Mom" without even looking up. His Kindergarten teachers, used to the usual drama, looked at me in surprise; I shrugged, smiled, said "Bye Felix, see you later" and left.
No drama.

As I drove home, I figured that maybe I had simply started the day wrong in the past weeks.
You see, when I have to leave home early - say, at 7, and yes, that's early in my books - I sleep as long as is possible. Before I had kids, which - alas - made earlier rising necessary, I would sleep until 6:40 or even 6:45 if I had to leave home at 7. Then I'd jump out of bed, get dressed, wash my face, have a cup of tea, grab my breakfast (this obviously required preparing breakfast in the evening) and be off.
Jörg is completely different. If he has to leave home at 7, he gets up at 5:30 so he can leisurely have breakfast, read a little, and generally get accustomed to the idea of "it's a new day". I cannot understand this at all because I'd rather sleep an hour longer than break fast an hour longer, but hey, it's his lack of sleep, not mine.
Until yesterday, though, I hadn't realised that maybe Felix was more like his father in this respect. On Kindergarten days, I'd get up at 7:30, but I let him sleep until 8:30 - as long as was possible with getting him dressed, getting him to eat his slice of bread, and getting him into the car so he'd be in Kindergarten at 9:00.

I thought I was doing him a favour because it would have been a favour to me, but it seems that this simply didn't work for him. Yesterday, in spite of the lack of sleep, he refused to go to Kindergarten "right away" but after about half an hour he was actually eager to go, right? So maybe he, like Jörg, feels rushed and stressed if he can't familiarise himself with the new day slowly, with a calm breakfast and enough time for the morning paper, so to say? And he'd rather give up on sleep than on the chance to get up leisurely?

I put it to the test today, and it worked like a charm. Woke him up at 7:45 in spite of the adorability of his sleep, and in spite of his initial sleepiness. Got him dressed, prepared his breakfast, and by 8:20, he told me that he wanted to go to Kindergarten now. (He hadn't even finished his slice of bread yet.) Dropped him off with the Katzengruppe, and he immediately ran into the room, declared that he wanted to draw, got himself a blotting pad and a sheet of paper, and sat down next to little M. "See you later, Mom", without even looking up.

Let's see what he's like when I pick him up. Yesterday, he didn't even notice that I was present because he was busy in one of the play corners - watching one of the older boys, E., operate the ball path. (E. is, as his mom told us, big on numbers, too. He proudly told me that he can count up to 19! I didn't have the heart to tell him that Felix can count to 99. In fact, if you tell him that "ninety-ten" is called "hundred" and "ninety-eleven" is called "a hundred and one", he can count until 199.) Apparently, they had been taking turns! I stood amazed. If he's still/ again in a friendly, cooperative mood again when I pick him up today, I consider this sufficient proof that my son, while definitely not a morning person, needs to get up earlier.

Go figure!

Comments

[barbardin.livejournal.com]

Ha, kommt mir bekannt vor... Mein Problem ist, dass ich gerne so lange schlafe wie möglich und nach dem Aufstehen trotzdem zu nichts zu gebrauchen bin. ;)

Was für ein Glück, dass du das so schnell rausgefunden hast! Das reduziert natürlich für ihn auch den Frust, der mit dem ganzen Nicht-Zuhause-Sein zusammenhängt. Denke ich mal, so als Laie. Jedenfalls schön, dass es für euch beide jetzt so stressfrei läuft und er im Kindergarten dadurch den Spaß bekommt, den er haben sollte. :)

[conuly]

Eva's the same way. Her solution to morning drama is to wake up earlier and take a bath before getting dressed. I don't get it at all, but it works for her.

[http://users.livejournal.com/macalla_/]

Ah, das kommt mir bekannt vor. Ich bin auch eher der Typ, der früher aufsteht, damit der Morgen in Ruhe beginnen kann. Ich HASSE es, mich hetzen zu müssen.

Ich will in Ruhe meine Katze begrüßen, duschen gehen, mich anziehen, noch rasch meine E-mails durchgehen und DANN das Haus verlassen (wir frühstücken beide nicht zuhause sondern erst im Büro. Ich würde um 05.20 noch nichts runterkriegen.)

Dafür bin ich am Abend zu nicht zu gebrauchen. Da will ich meine Ruhe und früh schlafen gehen.

[independence1776]

I'm very much the same way as Felix and Jörg; just reading that you're up and out the door in twenty minutes or less is stressful. I need at least a few minutes to myself before I leave.

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

Isn't it astounding to discover that children are their own people? I have seen it so many times with kids that age, and it still astounds me every time.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

I love hearing about Felix. I always need an hour to wake up before going anywhere.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Das ist ja noch mal ein bisschen anders. Felix und Jörg sind nämlich durchaus Nachteulen (oder finden abends jedenfalls den Weg ins Bett nicht ;)). Aber im Gegensatz zu mir ist ihnen offenbar am Morgen ein gemütliches Frühstück und friedliches In-den-Tag-gleiten heiliger als ein bisschen mehr Schlaf. Ich nehm's zur Kenntnis, auch wenn ich's nicht nachvollziehen kann. ^^

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I no longer am, now that I have to get three people prepared for getting up and out of the door. ;) But in the olden days, that worked best for me!

My parents are the extreme opposite, and it drives me mad. They get up two hours before they have to leave, and then just sort of dawdle the time away, and then they don't manage to leave in time anyway! (I rarely leave in time, either, but with only twenty minutes, that's hardly surprising. ;))

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

So glad to hear I'm not the only one. I felt a bit guilty because Duh, of course he's his own person, whatever made me think that he'd be a carbon copy of my character? But if it's not just me who falls into that trap... ^^

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

I seem to be an extreme case of "More sleep = more good"! Everyone else seems to need some awake time before leaving the house.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Well, as long as it works! XD

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Ich bin sowieso morgens zu nichts zu gebrauchen, egal, ob ich früh oder spät aufstehe. Also kann ich genauso gut spät aufstehen. ;)

War wirklich ein glücklicher Zufall (und ich hab mich erst so geärgert!). Denn heute war es wirklich wieder genauso! Rechtzeitig geweckt, nach dem Frühstück noch ein wenig Zeit zum Spielen, und wieder hieß es von ganz allein: "Sollen wir jetzt in den Kindergarten!" Lag also zumindest ein Teil des Dramas in den vergangenen Wochen schlicht und ergreifend daran, dass er sich noch nicht so richtig wach fühlte. Und es wäre ja noch ewig so weitergegangen, wenn der Dienstag nicht derart aufschlussreich *anders* gewesen wäre...