Next week will be easier

I'm feeling wrung out, it's been that kind of week. It started with sending the little boy off to school and ended with a record-breakingly hot day and awful bushfires. In the midst was the enormous emotional involvement of navigating Cherub through his first week as a schoolboy. Not to mention trying to get used to being on my own every day.



This was the face that greeted me at school pick-up time on Cherub's first two days of school. He's been happy to go to school in the morning, fine all during the day, but then he'd walk out the door at half past two, see me, and just crumple. His teacher assures me he's having a good time in the classroom. She says he puts up his hand and answers questions and joins in. Although one of the very few things he's actually told me was that he chose to sit out when the class played some basketball on his second day because he was so tired and he missed-ed me. The mental picture I had of him sitting forlornly in the shade made me feel like crying again.

Anyway. At the end of Day 3 he was droopy-but-not-crying and on the Friday he ran out and hugged me happily. Meantime he's been eating like a horse, extremely fragile under pressure and he kisses and tells me he loves me at at roughly 5-minute intervals. The Climber is being a very kind and caring big brother in the playground and took calm control when the Cherub had his first playground injury (nasty grazed forearm); first comforting him and then escorting him to the yard duty teacher with the first aid kit. Or as Cherub described her the person what was wearing a lallow coat and hadded a hostibal bag.