waiting for the bomb to explode (sort of)

SJ is surprising me.  Usually when he starts a new school year, he inevitably has a few meltdowns with all of the newness.  I was half expecting to get an email each day from Mr. Brown or any of his other teachers.  The emails never came.  No news is good news.  

The holiday weekend came and SJ got the flu. He had a fever and was complaining of leg pain.  We were supposed to go to a friend's house, but I cancelled.  SJ spent Saturday through Monday coughing and not feeling 100%.

Tuesday morning came and he was still coughing.  He didn't have a fever, so I gave him some cough medicine before taking him to school.  

I told his aide that he may be difficult since he wasn't feeling well.  She said okay and I told him to try his hardest that day.  He had a fine day.  Again no emails.

For homework, he had to log on to the school website to access his science book.  He and I were having a lot of trouble getting the access code to work.  SJ was getting so frustrated.  He wanted me to call Mr. Brown at home.  I told him that i would not call him for that. Fortunately, I was able to finally get into the site.  Maybe this was the tantrum I was expecting.  

Wednesday he was feeling much better.  Mrs. Banks stopped me at the end of the day to tell me how beautifully SJ has been working in reading class.  Wow!  I wasn't expecting that.  What great news!

After school, he had speech and then we returned home. I had to pick Bob up from soccer.  I left SJ at home with my husband.  When we got home, SJ was very upset.  Apparently, he left his reading packet at school.  

"Can we go get it?" he asked.  "No.  School is closed.  You can do it tomorrow," I told him.  He ran upstairs crying.  When I got upstairs, my husband informed me that he had been crying for 40 minutes.  Oh boy.  

SJ was convinced that his packet was due today.  I checked the website to see if it was due today.  It looked like it was due Friday.  I showed him, but he still wasn't convinced.  I called Mrs. Banks to see if the website was incorrect. She didn't answer, so SJ kept getting more agitated.

I assured him that the website was accurate, but he was escalating fast.  Twenty minutes later, Mrs. Banks called back.  She verified that the packet wasn't due until Friday.  I thanked her and told SJ.  Finally, he calmed down.  

There it was.  That was what I was expecting.  It always happens every year.  At least it happened at home this year.