Thursday, August 06, 2009

September is the New January.

We've all heard the saying "brown is the new black", "Lebron is the new MJ", and "Mojito is the new Martini" (okay I made that one up), but if you are a parent of school age children, "September is the new January". Truly. Why? Because going back to school is the biggest transition a kiddo deals with during the year. For you non-breeders, you can just check out now because I know that all September means to you is that you get to curse as you sit behind school buses, that your commute suddenly gets significantly longer, and you have to listen to your friends with kids complain about how "so-and-so" keeps forgetting his lunch on the school bus.

We are in the very early years of September being the most important month of the year.  In fact, this is the first year that September means anything to us.  Our son Max is 3 years old, and he is starting preschool at the end of August.  I am feeling all sorts of stress about this, which is probably silly.  Technically, he is moving from the Toddler room at his daycare into the Preschool room.  The ratios are much higher (8:1 vs 5:1) and there are a lot more kids in the Preschool room (24 vs. the 10 kids that Max is used to).  To complicate matters, Max is Autistic, so the teachers in his new room have to get up to speed quickly on how to work with Max.  Yeah, no wonder I am stressed.  

I have been pushing for Max to move out of the Toddler room for months.  The maximum age of that room is supposed to be 30 months and Max is now 39 months old.  He towers over the other kids in the Toddler room.  All of the kids he started with have been in the Preschool room for what feels like a lifetime.  The toys in the Toddler room suck, and the activities don't interest him anymore.  He's ready.  Except for one BIG thing.  I'm sure you can guess what it is.  That's right, the whole peeing in the potty deal.  

Boys tend to sort out toilet training later than girls.  Add Autism into the equation and you have a different set of challenges.  If you can believe it, we actually consulted Max's Senior Behaviouralist (the head of his Autism therapy team) on how to best handle this.  Before we started toilet training we charted Max's "eliminations" (pees and poos) down to the minute.  We consulted his daycare teachers.  We pushed back the toilet training start date because I was out of town for a weekend.  And then "P" day came and we put away Max's diapers and put him in underwear.  Everyone had been "briefed", we all knew how we were going to manage toilet training Max.  But I had no idea just how stressful it would be.  Three days in and I was fried.  My husband was fried.  Max was fine, but a bit confused (and smelly).  We ended up having 2 of this therapists spend a day at our house to coach us and to train Max intensively.  A costly solution, but this likely saved my marriage and my sanity.

I'm happy to report that just 9 days into toilet training, Max seems to get it.  He still has accidents, but 2/3's of the time he pees in the potty.  Poop, that's another issue, another blog post.  But peeing...peeing this kid gets.  We have 2 more weeks to get this whole thing sorted out before he moves to the Preschool room.  My floors are sticky, my laundry machine is running 24 hours a day, and my freezer is well stocked with vodka.  Come on September, bring it!

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1 comment:

  1. Anonymous7:59 a.m.

    I wish September was the new January, even though it would mean I'd have two birthdays a year as my bday is in Jan. But around where I live, schools start in August. As a matter of fact my two start on Wednesday. The school district I work for starts next Monday. Good luck with your September. Hopefully, we'll be in a good routine by then.