It seems as though Bauer doesn’t get nearly the play here on the blog as his older sister and sometimes younger brother. Maybe it is true what they say about the middle kid!
But regardless of me blogging about him, he definitely fills our life with a lot of love, turbulence and constant redo’s. He makes me come up with plan A, plan B, plan C, etc of parenting on a daily basis. Things that worked for Bree don’t even phase him.
However, Bauer has very few loves in his life so trying to find his currency continues to be pretty easy….his blanket, the ipad and now the mini ipad (because you can watch shows on it due to the internet connection still working). Anytime he gets in trouble, it is one of these three that we take away and it really speaks to him about not repeating said behavior.
He’s been having a lot of trouble lately at his preschool ending up on the yellow portion of the behavior traffic light (everyone starts on green, but any issues during the day can move you to yellow or red). Bauer likes to push his friends of late and apparently even tattling on a friend can land you in hot water in preschool these days. He loses his blanket for the ride home from preschool any time he’s on yellow and sometimes loses the ipad for the rest of the night. To him, it really is like his world is ending. But it works (most of the time). He finally turned a corner and stopped getting on yellow by the second to last day he would spend at this preschool. I mean, you have to go out on a positive note 
This week, he starts at his new preschool.
If you asked him if he was excited, he would say yes! If you asked him why, he would say they have ipads and animals there. We may have sold him on this transition by pointing out that they get to play ipads during center time and they have 3 or 4 different kinds of animals in cages in the classroom. I told you his currency is pretty low…boys are awesome like that.
This morning as we were pulling up to the preschool, I heard him in the back say, “Hello, my name is Bauer!”. I looked back at him and asked him if he were practicing to meet new friends. He just smiled. My heart officially melted.
So just like that he walked into his classroom, monster lunchbox and backpack in hand. Turns out it they were taking class pictures today. It seems as though Bauer will just walk right into a his new life at Grace without missing a beat!
He was a little less confident when we left him in the classroom and held on for dear life! It was hard to let him go, but I know that dramatic flair well. He would be fine.
His teacher called a couple hours later to tell us he was doing fabulous and barely saw us leave the door before he was absolutely fine!
He’s going to be great and I hope that maybe a change of scenery and some new friends will allow him to make some more progress on the behavior front. It cracked me up the other day when he told me that it was really hard for him to be good “all day long”…”it’s a really long day, Mommy”! Oh it’s soooooo hard to be 4!
His teacher said on his last day at Week Day School that she was so proud of Bauer because he had come so far in the time he was in her class. Part of me just laughed inside because I see all the ways each day that he is still making me crazy by not really being potty trained and not listening and holding onto that darn blanket! But seeing him in his new environment today really showed me what a big boy he is becoming.
He knows what he needs to do and he can make it happen. He doesn’t always do it, but he can!
This little boy who comes to my room every night and asks to sleep with me (and sometimes I give in…okay, a lot of the time) is growing up. Part of me is relieved we’ve decided to keep him in preschool for another year…
…I’m just not ready to give up my needy little red headed wonder boy quite yet!
