Whew!

Today was Riley's second day at pre-school and both he I had our own concerns about how it would go. I had to tell him kind of a half truth in order to even get him there, because I felt if he knew exactly what we were going to do he'd slink under his bed and not come out, which is his new tactic when faced with something he doesn't want to do. It's charming, as you can imagine. So I didn't actually tell him I was going to leave him there solo, but I didn't tell him otherwise either. As it was, we got there and while we were hanging out with the other kids and parents I began talking about the agreement we'd made last Friday and about how this is the day we'd named as when I needed him to try again. When he understood what was happening he began crying and holding on to me really tightly. I held him and said I understood it felt strange to do this new thing, but that I really strongly believed that he would be just fine and that once it was more familiar I believed that he'd come to enjoy being there. Many, many tears and heart rending begging not to leave him later, I finally peeled him off me and passed him to his teacher, who held him as I made my way to the car. It felt SO DREADFUL to hear my darling child crying for me and to walk away. The attachment he feels for me is not one sided, obviously, and my first impulse when I hear him cry is to go to him, so it took a lot of resolve to wear a calm body language and walk away from him instead. I got to the car and drove out of sight and had to pull over to gather myself together. 

Thank goodness a friend, whose daughter is in Riley's class, phoned me as soon as I got home and said that she'd seen the whole thing and knew I'd be a wreck till I knew how he was doing. She went back to the gate to check on him and saw that Riley was no longer crying and had taken his teachers hand and walked with the class as they took their morning walk around the back of the school. Knowing that put my heart at ease and I knew we'd taken a good step in the right direction. 

When I went to pick him up (about five minutes later, it felt like!) I parked nearby and meant to spy on him, but couldn't see anything, so I finally walked up to the play area where there's some shrubbery that I could lurk behind. (not really, but that's how it felt) I finally spotted him tagging along behind everyone's favorite teacher, Mr Huck, chatting it up and asking a stream of questions! It cracked me up to hear him at one point asking if Mr Huck was scared of rockets. When Mr. H said yes, that they were too loud, Riley helpfully suggested that perhaps he needed to wear some earplugs! ;-)

All in all it was like night and day. He really seemed to be at ease today and the teachers all reported that he'd seemed to enjoy himself, he'd played with the other children and even made friends with a little boy. We go again tomorrow, so hopefully we'll have a repeat! :-) 

And in other news, after he got out of pre-school Riley and I went to the hospital and met Mimi for lunch and then went up to see Poppy! Leon's out of the ICU and in a regular room, so that's a big step in the right direction. He's back walking and building his strength and has high hopes that he'll be back at home in a week or so. He says he's tired, but given how much his body is having to work to heal from the two surgeries (the transplant, then the installation of the drain) it's no wonder he's tired. There's no sign of rejection of the lung, so we're all keeping our fingers crossed and looking forward to the day when Leon's able to do all the things he has on his want-to-do list. 

Now, off to make dinner! Robbie's due back this evening and we're all fired up to watch the VP debates.