Long Day

This morning started with Steven complaining of a tummy ache. Since about the 5th week of school every morning starts with some ailment. At first it was a sore throat and headache. Since strep had been going around school I took him to the doctor with negative results. One other time I kept him home, but upon hearing he wasn't going to school he was miraculously better. About a week ago, one of his classmates got sent home with a tummy ache. The next morning his sore throat and headache turned into a tummy ache. So this morning was nothing new, I got him ready for school and took a teary eyed boy to the bus stop. When the bus came into view he looked up at me and told me "I hate school Mom. Please let me stay home because I really am sick and I feel like I have to throw up.". I was so torn. I told him if he got worse at school he could always call me. With that I sent my little boy off to school. That fact that I have a kindergartener that hates school makes me furious.
I returned home to get ready to take Hubster to the oral surgeon in the next town that is 30 miles away. We still had 3 hours before we had to go and since I had only got 3 hours of sleep last night I decided to go back to bed for another hour. I woke up an hour later to Steven's smiling face at my bedside. Like an idiot I had forgotten to shut off the internet from my early morning surfing and the school ended up calling my sil Julie to go get Steven whom had claimed to have thrown up on the playground. So Julie brought Steven home and almost got flashed by Hubster who was just getting out of the shower. Steven was very happy to be home and didn't appear to be sick at all. Hubster and I loaded the boys in the car and headed down to the oral surgeon. During the surgery I had plenty of time to think about the situation with Steven. I knew I had to nip this school situation in the bud. Steven and I have discussed school daily and I knew his view, but I needed to have another talk with Ms. Kojak and find out exactly what was going on. Upon arriving home I settled Hubster into bed and told the boys to be good for Daddy and I headed for the school. I caught Ms. Kojak just as she was going over to meet her class from P.E. so while we walked across campus I told her I was very upset that Steven, a kindergartner, hated school. Ms. Kojak told me that this week Steven has been doing really well with his behavior since we had had our conference. Basically she was shocked that Steven was upset. She really thought that he was sick this morning since he was very pale when he got to school. At this point I felt I was over reacting. Since Ms Kojak couldn't continue our discussion I decided I wanted to talk with one other of Steven's teachers Mr. Rutty. He has Steven for computers and P.E. Mr. Rutty had only 10 minutes to spare so I got straight to the point and we discussed Steven. He told me he has Steven first thing in the morning for computers and then P.E. at 2:30 and that he is a totally different kid from morning to P.E. In computers he is a well behaved kid and is doing fantastic in class. But come P.E. Mr. Rutty has to get after Steven quite often. Mr. Rutty consulted his book from the computer class and said he rarely has to remind Steven to get on task. In looking at his book, he discovered he only has to get after Steven on Monday mornings and that has been since week 5. With those facts I came to the conclusion that Steven is getting tired during the school day. On Sunday nights I have a real problem getting Steven to bed on time. I know at home that when Steven gets tired he has to be told several times to do something, he is more argumentative, whinier, and fights with his brother more. He is also one of those kids who gets more active when he is tired. Its like if he can spin kick, jump, and play hard enough he can keep sleep from coming. This next week of school he only goes Mon & Tues and then has the rest of the week off for Thanksgiving. So this weekend I'm going to watch and see how long Steven sleeps normally and base his bedtime on the number of hours he needs. Hopefully, this will help him during school and the next parent teacher conference we won't be talking about ADD drugs.