Down for the count

We had been doing well these days.  And although it may sound like a bad thing that we've started our count on the number of days without tantrums or meltdowns all over again, we were able to reach TWENTY-SIX (26) DAYS!  I am still so proud of Puppy for making it through all 26 days.

His final day came after school and while at daycare yesterday.  As it turns out, my boss gave me an early release from work yesterday and I was out at 4:30 P.M.  I didn’t really have errands to run and was going to take the opportunity to visit my parents until about 6:00 P.M., which is the hour I usually leave to pick up Puppy at daycare.   Knowing daylight will be gone by that time, I decided I’d rather pick him up early and we could go visit my parents together, and then head home afterward. 

I arrived at the daycare and hoped to see Puppy excited to see me there early.  He is still learning to tell time, but he knows it’s always dark when I pick him up and today it wasn’t.  So I open the door to his classroom and find him in standing in a corner and there are two teachers with him.  I see his face, and he’s been crying.  You have no idea how many things were going through my mind.  I took notice that the other children were playing and watching TV, so I took that as a good sign because none of them was being attended to (meaning none of them was hurt).  When he saw me he walked between the two teachers since they were giving their backs to me and hadn’t noticed I was standing there.  He put his head on my shoulder as tried to calm him further.

My first reaction was to ask what happened, and I was waiting to hear he fell; but that wasn’t it. Puppy was just calming down from having a tantrum.  I continued to calm him as the two of us and his teacher walked outside to talk.  She explained to me how he asked for paper and she asked him what he was going to draw.  He answered he was going to make a paper wallet.  When she reminded him that he knows better and he isn’t suppose to make paper wallets, he lost it.  He hit the desk, and then his head with a closed fist, screamed foul language at the teacher, and yelled there were too many kids there and that he wanted to go home, for them to call his mother. 

I looked at him.  He quickly apologized for the behavior, a quick move on his part.  But that was not enough, nor was it going to get him off the hook.  After signing the incident report for the teacher, Puppy and I went home.  He asked for a chance to go to the store or to get ice cream, etc., but got a “no” from me the entire ride home.  We talked once we got home and his attitude changed.  But it was a long night because I continued to reinforce that the behavior he had was unwanted and unnecessary, not good behavior.  So we are back at zero days.