Incident Report

Oh, I knew every day wouldn't be as good as the first, but I certainly wasn't expecting the second day of daycare to be so, so much worse.

Drop off went fine, and yesterday's report card indicates Cayden had fun and was "cheerful" most of the day, but then there are a few pieces of the puzzle that certainly don't add up to an entirely "cheerful" experience...

First, upon pick-up I could hear my boy crying from all the way down the hall.  I opened the door to the bears room to find him and two little girls sitting in their lunch/arts-and-crafts seats at the table, with a teacher I haven't met yet, Kristy.  There he is, big fat tears running down his puffy face, and hard-crying snot all over the place.  As soon as he saw me, he reached for me.

Miss Kristy asked if he had stranger anxiety, and I told her no, he's never had a problem with new interactions.  I did confirm for her it was the second day of his first-ever daycare experience, and she concluded his anxiety must just be normal adjustment to a new routine.

So then I gathered the poor little puddle of tears out of his chair, wiped his nose, grabbed his bags and noticed two pieces of paper in his cubby.

The report card clued me in to his 5:30 meltdown: he had only napped for an hour and 10 minutes yesterday.  My boy is a pretty steady three-hour-a-day napper.  So I realized Cayden's problem wasn't stranger anxiety and it likely wasn't adjustment stress.  Rather, it was I-don't-want-to-stack-and-knock-over-blocks-because-I'm-exhausted-and-please-oh-please-just-give-me-my-blue-blankie-so-I-can-go-to-sleep anxiety.

And he had a second day in a row of all wet diapers, but no soiled ones.  Since Cayden typically has one or two daytime poops, I've drawn the conclusion that my boy is a nervous pooper.  He's not totally comfortable in the new setting, yet, so he's not relaxed enough to poop.  He saves his poops for those he knows and loves.

So after drawing all these conclusions about a less-than great second day at school, then I read the second piece of paper.  The Incident Report.

Day number two of daycare, and we have our first Incident Report.

"Cayden was playing when a friend bit him on the back.  Treated with washing, ice and TLC."

So rather than go to Toys'R'Us after daycare to spend a birthday gift card on a new toy, as we had planned to do, I called Daddy, gave him the short-and-sweet, and told him we were heading home.

Cayden's shirt came off the minute we were inside the house, and damned if he doesn't have a red, slightly swollen toddler BITE MARK on his right shoulder blade.  Somebody bit him hard enough -- through his clothes, no less -- to leave a lasting mark.  Still there this morning. 

I imagine some rabid little kid pinning my boy down while gnawing maliciously on his back.  Brian immediately wanted to find out which "friend" this was, to contemplate retaliation.  Because boy retaliation would be totally different than girl retaliation.  But either way, Brian's pretty sure there are toddler kung-fu classes around here.  And Grandma delicately inquired if we should call the doctor and get any shots because of the bite.

Then we all calmed down and realized this is the first of what will likely be many incident reports at school.  We're just hoping Cayden doesn't internalize the incident and return to school next Thursday with a vendetta.  It's not out of the question though: after being bitten at daycare when Brian was little, a day or two later he received his own incident report, because he had bitten his biter back in retaliation.

Anyway, it was a tough second day of school.  And a poor day of napping means a poor night of sleeping, so my poor boy was up at 2:30 a.m., 4:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m.

Here's hoping for a better couple of school days next week...