Kindergarten

It occurs to me that I forgot to blog about Stephen's first day of school! Sorry - this picture was taken before I took him to school. Normally, he rides the bus in the morning, but my mommy heart just couldn't take NOT walking him to his classroom on his first day of Kindergarten. And I totally didn't cry!

It has been a month since Stephen started school, and as expected he loves it! He is playing with the other children, and enjoys the addition of P.E., art class, and music class. This is not to say, however, that this has been a smooth transition. For the past 6 months or so, Stephen has been waking up early with increasing frequency. And by early, I mean 5am, and sometimes earlier. For the record, a 5-6 year old should be getting 10-11 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. Stephen is sitting on 9 most days. This started to become a daily issue over the summer, but we were hopeful that all-day kindergarten would wear him out enough to sleep longer, as he is really suffering from being so tired all day. We finally had enough, and took him to the pediatrician about this, and she suggested that we give him melatonin, and try to keep him up later. This is easier said than done - Stephen is ready to go to sleep usually between 7 and 7:30, instead of the 8pm that the doctor suggested, but we are keeping him up as best as we can. Sadly, this has affected his behavior at home and school, as well as his school performance, but we are all working proactively to help him as much as we can.  We now have an appointment for a sleep study in October, which will hopefully reveal the underlying cause for the sleep issues.  In the meantime, we're all just plugging along as best as we can!

Despite the sleep issues, Stephen's teacher reports that he is really a wonderful boy, and a joy to have around. That's what we love to hear!