Making a smooth transition

Someone had once told me (I think Jean) that the first two weeks were the hardest on a child's transition to a new daycare/environment.  This was very true in Brycen's case.  Every morning at the times I would drop him off, he would have an absolute break-down about being left there and ask if he could be picked up early.  There were a few days in his second week that I was able to pick him up early and he really enjoyed that.  

In the start of his third week, his attitude completely changed... like turning a light switch!  I had dropped him off, got a few hugs and a kiss and he walked away with no tears.  It was such a welcome change for his teachers, me, and mostly Brycen.  I think his anxiety of going to a new school was starting to fade and he was even starting to talk more about school when he was at home.  I received a lot of good comments from his teachers saying that he was a very nice boy, well mannered, and comments about his intelligence and vocabulary.  

I knew that once Brycen opened up and started getting comfortable in his classroom he would start to show his true colors and personality.  He started to have friends at school and in a short period of time he learned all of the names of the kids in his class and their parents that he saw drop them off and pick them up.  I am amazed when we pull up in the parking lot and he can tell me who's mom or dad is getting in the car.  

We have kept the tradition to eat two mangoes on the way to school each day.  Luckily for Brycen as we started to see the bottom of the bag, Grandpa Fara was coming that same weekend to bring him a new bag of mangoes.  Needless to say, Brycen was very excited to see Grandpa and his special delivery.  

The third week at HC marked our very last week living in our home in Swisher.  We had grown to love watching Brad and Sara head for the school bus every morning before we left and all the fun times they had playing at the end of the day.  The last weeks we lived in Swisher were very busy and we often were spending time at the new house in Walford before coming home to Swisher, limiting our daylight hours with Brad and Sara.  

There was so much fun each and every day in our short little 12 minute commute to jean's house!  It was a challenge to see if we could find the cows just before the Swisher corner, we had fun watching for planes to land at the Cedar Rapids airport as we drove by, nearly every day we saw the horses on highway 965, it was a race to see who could point out the wind turbine at Kirkwood, the diggers/dump truck/"maintaders" at the county maintenance shed.  Brycen learned all about stop lights while we were driving to see if we can catch the green light on Wright Brother's Blvd, and it was fun watching the construction going up by McDonalds.  Nearly every day we would see some geese by the pond on 965 and we had fun learning to count by seeing how many school bus's we could see when driving through College Community's campus. (Sometimes too many to count!)  

Lucky for us, there are just as many construction vehicles and even more horses on the drive to Cedar Rapids on Highway 151.  :)