After spending all the initial years of his life in the hospital, switching rooms and taking medicines, Oliver finally started Kindergarten. From overwhelming noise to heartfelt hugs and friendships, the little boy finally gets to experience what life looks like. Now, he blooms forever!
A year and a half after his transplant, Oliver started school! I won’t lie, the first week or so was ROUGH. Due to his health and the fact that he was in the hospital most of his 4th year of life, he never had the
opportunity to go to any type of day care or preschool with other kids and are so thankful that due to his new, strong heart, he’s finally in a place to be able to go. Needless to say, we knew starting kindergarten was going to be a huge adjustment for him. He was so excited leading up to it, asking every day how many more days until school starts. We got to meet his teacher, the school nurse, and a few other faculty members ahead of time when we met to get his 504 plan set up. His teacher turned out to be the same woman who did his kindergarten assessment the week before and I was so thankful because he had already made a great connection with her!
This school year was a big deal for both of our boys with our oldest starting middle school and Oliver starting kindergarten. Definitely a milestone for them and the first time I haven’t had a kid at home (or in the hospital) with me in a LONG time. There were some tears (mine) that first morning for sure, but I was surprised to find that instead of sadness, they were mainly tears of happiness and pride for both of them getting to this point and doing so well.
We dropped Oliver off at school first and got to walk him to class. He was so excited to find his table with his name on it and was happily coloring until it was time for us to go. When he hugged us bye the tears started to flow and he didn’t want to let go. We know how hard it can be in general dropping your kid off for their first day of school, but when your kid has never been left with strangers other than for medical procedures, it brings up a lot of other memories and feelings too.
They have recess in the afternoon and there’s not always good shade so due to his medication making him very sensitive to the sun, he has to go to the nurse’s office each day to get sunscreen applied. That first afternoon we get a call from the nurse. She started off by saying that everything was fine (always appreciate being told that right off the bat 😅) but that when Oliver came to her office to get his sunscreen applied he burst into tears about missing us. She gave him a hug, told him how proud she was that he had gone alllll day to school and that guess what? Recess is the LAST thing of the day and we’d be there to pick him up after that! When we picked him up that afternoon he was all smiles. “Guess WHAT! We got to go OUTSIDE to play on a playground for RECESS!”
The rest of the week went the same. A lot of tears in the morning at drop off but excited to see us after school and was (and still is) shocked that he got to “go to recess AGAIN!” His teacher mentioned that he was teary eyed on and off throughout the days and hadn’t really wanted to play with the other kids much. It broke my heart to think of him sitting at lunch or at recess crying by himself. He had expressed that school was LOUD. He being pretty loud himself, I didn’t expect that part to bother him as much as it did. We had a lot of talks with him throughout the week.
Midway through the second week, we were in the drop off line and he began to get upset saying how much he was going to miss us. Brian told him that we of course miss him too when he’s gone but that we will always be there to pick him up every day. He also told him, “you know it’s okay to miss us but still try to have a good and fun day? You don’t have to cry just because you miss us. We will know you’re missing us even if you want to go in with a smile on your face and say hi to other people.” Oliver thought about that and said, “oh….Okay! Bye!” And got out of the car without a single tear and hasn’t cried since. Guess he just needed to know he didn’t *have* to cry every time. 🤦🏽♀️
He’s made a “favorite friend” that he’s excited to tell us about every day and that’s seemed to help him adjust a lot too. He is still confused as to why he has to go to school for 5 days and is “only” off for 2 days (aren’t we all) but he’s finally getting in a good routine with it all and we’ve seen so much confidence grow in him the past couple of weeks. We are excited to see where the rest of the year takes him!