Sam stories: September 2008 Archives

Sam loooooooooooooooves to get the mail. She adores it. She especially loves it if there's mail for her, which is a feeling I can remember before I moved into my first apartment.

Normally, Daddy picks her and Noah up from the sitter's house and takes them home, and then he and Sam get the mail. But on Wednesday, I picked the kiddos up because my husband had 10-hour training in Lebanon and then a three-hour night class in Harrisburg (yeah, so glad I wasn't him yesterday).

Since her double-yellow days last week, Sam's had nothing but green days.

She had quite an incentive to get them, too: Daddy said no TV until she had five green days in a row.

I'll admit, I thought five days was too many, especially since it wasn't as though we had been dealing with her having a behavior issue for months. Plus, that meant we had to go all of this past weekend with Sam not getting any TV time

(*note: I will not be blogging about those 48 hours. I share many things on here, but I'm afraid to share the fact of how many times I almost caved in and flicked on an episode of SpongeBob for 22 solid minutes of peace.)

Within three days, I've gone from relief to frustration with Sam and school.

The relief: She's staying in morning kindergarten (insert mental picture of me dancing here -- or don't, if you're trying to eat right now).

The frustration: Sam had another "yellow" day yesterday.

There's been a little grumbling, but Sam has happily hopped on the bus three days in a row.

She's gotten herself into a routine, which for Sam is a requisite for functioning without tears. She likes repetition. She likes knowing what will happen today, and tomorrow, and the day after -- even if she still hasn't grasped those time concepts yet.

Like now, every morning, while we wait at the bus stop, she and her two newest best friends in the world pick flowers for their mommies and their teachers. One morning, Jaylen sent her daddy home with a veritable bouquet of wildflowers.

And then I got a note from school saying our whole happy routine could change.