Yesterday Jack and I went down to my friend Lisa’s for the day. Her son, Jon, is 4.5 months younger than Jack, and we try and get together once a week. Jack was fine in the morning, and I kept reminding him we were leaving soon. When it was time to go, he helped me put his crayons away, and then when I asked him to get his shoes and socks, he started freaking out.
He was shrieking and crying and hanging on to my legs, didn’t want to put his shoes on, tried to stop me from going out the door to the garage. I finally had to put him into the car seat forcibly. That’s no picnic for either of us. I figured once we got on the way he’d be fine, but he cried on and off the whole drive down. When we got to Lisa’s neighborhood, he calmed down, and after I got him out of the car, he ran to meet Lisa when she opened the door. He was perfectly happy all day, then cried again off and on on the drive home.
I thought he might be so upset because he was afraid we were going back to the gym childcare! But maybe that’s just me projecting.
This morning he was good as gold, even helping me put on his diaper. We went off to preschool without a hitch, but he was unusually clingy there. Most of the time he doesn’t even look back, but goes off to play. Today he kept coming back to find me (I was on the art station) and was crying a couple of times. He didn’t want to do a handprint. He did play by himself eventually, but it was just a different Jack.
