AsthmaMan finished preschool last week and I will admit I was teary at his graduation.

I want to pretend I was teary because time is passing and he is growing up, but in all honesty it was because preschool graduation means he is home with me all day… every day.

Before you think I am a truly awful parent, let me provide a bit more information.

We moved from our beloved Texas to Georgia in March. It’s been two months, but we still don’t have friends out here. If we disappeared tomorrow no one would notice, and that is ok, I know the first year in a new place is isolating and lonely- I was prepared.

But here’s the deal, the kids started school 48 hours (maybe even less) after arriving in Georgia. They were automatically plunged into warm and loving environments, they had a group of friends, structure, and a place to be right off the bat… And now they don’t. They have each other, but siblings aren’t quite the same as having your own set of friends.

All of a sudden my strong willed child has gone from the leader of the pack to home with me. It’s rough. At graduation I knew the transition from 5 days a week with kids his age to all day every day with me and his siblings was coming, and it wasn’t so much sad as overwhelming and terrifying.

Some kids have bad days, bad hours, even bad weeks, AsthmaMan has had a bad 2 years. He can be sweet and loving or just plain awful. We tend to lean towards the awful side 80% of the time. Whether he is tormenting his sister, refusing to eat, screaming at his brother, trying to run away, or muttering “I hate you” under his breath to me, the days are long. I want to love his childhood but I don’t. I want him to be happy, carefree, and willing to comply at least a little bit- but he’s hangry and uncooperative. But he LOVES preschool. He loves every minute of it and his little personality changes from demon to sweet kid- I think it has something to do with him not liking to be the middle child. For both our sanity I want him to be in school living the life he loves.

We’ve made it a few days, we’ve had fun water activities, offered snacks, and tries to stop nagging him to eat. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to have a couple dozen panic attacks dealing with this child over the summer, but we’ve survived this long so maybe we can make it until August 1st.