J’s Day: the good and not-so-good

Jason still continues to struggle some mornings to get out of bed and I’m beginning to think that he will always need someone keeping close tabs on him in the morning to get him ready on time.  Perhaps it’s a boy thing.  This morning was the worst yet.  He came downstairs dressed, but grumpy.  When I realized he never unpacked his lunchbox from yesterday I told him he wouldn’t get lunch unless he took care of it.  Reluctantly he finally got it out so I could get started on his lunch.  Besides a plain cheese sandwich there wasn’t anything healthy that he wanted me to put in his lunch so I threw a go-gurt inside and told him he didn’t have to eat it if he didn’t want to.  He pouted that he wanted to buy lunch at school, which is ridiculously expensive, and with his food allergies difficult to accommodate.  It took him forever to decide what he wanted for breakfast and when he finally settled on a plain (non-blueberry) bagel I popped it in the toaster, slathered it with cream cheese and placed it in front of him.  What a monstrous error on my part to not ask if he wanted cream cheese or butter because of course, he wanted butter because today (and today only) cream cheese is “gross!”   It continued downhill.  I asked if he had socks on and moments later Carly told me he was pulling them off.  At this point we’re just minutes away from needing to leave the house to catch the bus so I pulled the socks on.  When he refused to put on shoes I strapped on the shoes.  When he refused a coat I put that on as well.  I opened the door it was no surprise that he refused to budge.  He wasn’t hysterical, but he had monstrous tears streaming down his face and that look in his eyes that he was off in some other realm where he could not be reached and cooperation and logic didn’t exist.  So what’s a Mom to do?  It’s a 20 minutes drive to school, I had a baby on the family room floor, a three year old eating breakfast… I told him it was either school or bed – he said school but he was walking at snail speed.  When minutes passed and they were just two houses away, I finally told Carly to run off and catch the bus on her own.  Jason stopped moving completely while I stood on the porch calling out for him to either run to the bus or come back to bed.  He wouldn’t run, but he continued walking very slowly.  I knew he’d never make it in time so I ran in the house, threw Katie and Drew in the van and drove around the block to the bus stop.  The bus was loaded and Jason was still 4-5 houses away, still refusing to run, but our saving grace was that another neighborhood kid was running late and the bus driver was waiting for her so Jason made it, barely. 

I was fairly confident that after a few minutes on the bus with friends he’d be fine, but I sent an email to his teacher to let her know that Jason hadn’t eaten breakfast and that he’d a rough morning.  Later that morning I received the following email from her, “Hi Holly- I just wanted to follow up and let you know that Jason is doing great!  He is his normal happy self at school today!”  I sure love that kid, but when he breaks down (thankfully, it’s not often) it is nearly impossible to bring him back – he has to do it on his own time.  Too bad we just didn’t have time on our side this morning.

Jason came home happy, which was great because Wednesday is our most crazy day.  Today was his last soccer game of the season.  I brought my camera along so I could get a few pictures to document the season.

Jason tends to hold up a #1 finger after he scores, he did the same thing in baseball

Jason has improved a lot since last year.  He can run really fast, he has great instincts on where to kick the ball, he does great at passing to teammates, he’s always enthusiastic about playing, and he’s scored in several of the games.  However, he’ll often get to the ball then take a moment to either position himself or consider his next move and as a result lose his advantage.  It’s actually been quite frustrating for me to watch.  I know he’s just thinking about the best move, but it still hard for this competitive mama to watch.

After today’s game trophies were distributed and cupcakes enjoyed.  Hallelujah!  It was a fun season, but I’m looking forward to having one less soccer schedule to juggle.

This team picture perfect depicts the personality of the team – bless anyone willing to coach young kids!

Looking at his cute face it’s hard to imagine this morning even possible