The BIG news drop, and hopefully that's it

Tonight when Corey got home from work (this was a drill weekend), we sat the boys down and broke the news about attending St. Jude in the fall. The psychologist had coached us on delivering the news in a positive ("you're starting a new school next year") instead of a negative ("you're not going back to St. Theresa next year"). We wanted to tell them before school let out, to give them the opportunity to talk to their friends and exchange contact information for the summer. But we didn't want to give them too much time, considering Jake's weakness for converting sadness into anger directed at his classmates.

It went exactly like I thought it would. Landen had about thirty seconds of unhappiness, until he heard that he gets to sleep an hour later and pick out his own school shoes (they have to wear all-white at St. Theresa). The truth is that Landen has had a rough start to every school year. We have to rebuild his confidence upon the entry of every grade, so we'd expect his few weeks of third grade to be shaky, regardless of the school. He's also had trouble making and keeping friends this year. I'm sure he'll be nervous about making new friends, but we're planning to get a jump on him not being a total stranger to some of his classmates.

Upon hearing the news, Jake started nodding and smiling and blinking and saying "okay." Which is the clearest indication that Jake is not okay. We listed the things we liked about this school - only two classes per grade, both boys at the same campus, the same campus as our church, highly recommend by other parents and families we know, uniforms are basically the same, their shoes can have color, they can sleep an hour later, they could ride the bus to and from home if they want. The bottom line is that we live in Baton Rouge. The boys need to attend school in their worship and geographical community. When Jake was throwing up at school on Friday, it took me 65 minutes from the time they called me to when I walked in the door. I would not be able to do any better for anything more severe than the pukeys, and I'm not a mom whose comfortably not being able to get to her kids quickly!

We got him to let his crying out a little bit. At first he denied and said he "was sweating from his eyeballs," but his dad has zero tolerance for trying to be cutesy in serious moments, so he was forced to be honest about why his eyes were wet, though he kept saying he had no feelings. We made him get up and go to the feelings chart on the fridge and I read him all the ones that I thought might apply and simplified if he did not know what a word meant. This is what he ended up choosing:

We did not make him go into why he selected anxious. There's plenty of time for us to work through that. His psychologist told me that since Jake and I approach things from the same high-anxiety, hate-to-feel-displaced-and-out-of-control place, I needed to think about what would worry me if I was Jake, or what would make me sad, or what would make me angry about starting a new school. So in a couple days, his dad and I will check back in with him and try to get him to talk about what's worrying him about this. Not that we can erase these worries - having to make new friends, meet new teachers, not knowing where things are are all legitmate concerns- but getting him to acknowledge what's making him worry will help us find some peace in this decision with him.

Completely by coincidence, Corey and I picked up a couple boxes of Pop-Its in a quick run to Target last night. After Jake selected his feeling so well, Corey took them outside with a box of them and we encouraged him to throw them down hard, like he was mad at it.

And a video. This is not exciting and for the first part, out of focus, but I do love Jumping Jake.

I picked up the camera after we instructed Jake to throw it like his was mad at it and he violated his first few poppers. So the Pop-Its ended the evening on a happy note, instead of sending a child up to bed without trying to diffuse his anxiety. (I just went upstairs to check on them, and Lily is in the bed laying in the small of Jake's back. That girl has learned to take attention and affection wherever she can get it. Love comes in many forms, even the sometimes over-eagerness and invasiveness of a little boy, and she's accepting it.)

The boys have four days of school this week, and a total of two days next week. So we've given them enough time to get what they need to stay in touch with the friends they want to keep, and given one of them in particular very little time to take out his anger-veiled-sadness on some kid at morning prayer. His friends have been to his house now, so he can grasp the concept that they can always come back. Poor kid. I know this decision is the right one, but I wish we hadn't had to make it.

Eventually, we're going to stop throwing this kid into an emotional blender. The school change is the last one I'm anticipating, and I try very, very hard to control what kind of game-changers I throw at this boy. The most important thing moving forward is to avoid surprises that change his schedules or his expectations.

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