As expected, we knew the drop off today would be tougher.  Connor was still cheerful walking into school, but by the time we arrived to the classroom, Connor did not want to go inside.  I ended up carrying him inside, and by then, Connor started to look sad and his eyes became teary.  He did not want to sit down at the table, and basically he hung on to me tightly.  He started crying sadly when I told him that I had to leave and would return to pick him up later.  Finally the teacher had to take him away; Connor continued to cry a lot and gave me the saddest look ever.  I just had to say goodbye and rush out of the room to minimize this torture.  I went to Connor’s regular room to drop off his lunch bag, and when I returned near the dropoff room, fortunately I did not hear any more crying.

    At the end of the day, the teacher told me that Connor did even better today.  He only cried for like 20 seconds when they first stepped out to the playground.  Connor participated in painting and made his first artwork there.  He even said to the teacher “Help please” when he needed help.  The teacher also told me she taught him how to say “Aqua” (water).  The report card said that Connor’s mood today was “happy” and he had a good appetite (that’s the Connor we know!) 

     Stuart dropped Connor off this morning for his first day at the new school.  When we were leaving the house, Connor did not want to leave me, but was fine after being offered a banana.  According to Stuart, Connor was happy as usual when they arrived and they walked into the morning drop off room.  There were only a few kids including Bailey, so Stuart sat Connor down with her.  Connor didn’t seem interested to play at this point, and was more concerned that Dad might leave.  After touching base with the teacher and was told to best leave at that point, Stuart said goodbye to Connor who then began to cry sadly. 

      I waited until 12:30 to call the school to check on Connor.  The director answered the phone; she told me that she was visiting the classroom at 10:30am and saw Connor playing without any crying.  She reported that there is another “Conor” (one N) in the class, and it was interesting observing how the kids seemed intrigued and yet confused having two Connors.  She advised me to call back later as the teachers were getting the kids ready for nap.  So I called back at 2:30pm, and one of the teachers reported that Connor was doing very well, only had cried a couple of times.  He played with the toys/jobs well, ate his lunch with other kids and went down to sleep nicely.  He did not even cry when waking up, and he noticed that other kids were still laying down, so he decided to just lay down for a bit longer. 

     At the end of the day when I arrived at the classroom, Connor was sitting with the teacher along with two other kids; I did not pay attention to see what they were doing.  Connor immediately called my name and ran to me with a big smile as soon as I opened the door.  He was trying to tell me how he was with the teacher as he pointed to the teacher.  Then he went toward the shelf trying to reach for his lunch bag and his water.  He seemed to be familiar with the routine already.  As we walked out, he pointed out the playground to me too.  We are so proud of how Connor is adapting to new place so well.

    Logan, on the other hand, does not seem to like change too much.  After seeing Daddy leaving with Connor in the morning, Logan was whiny during the drive to school.  He kept saying he misses Daddy and wants to see him.  He finally felt better when I told him that Daddy could pick him up after school.  He was also more clingy at school; I had to distract him by asking him to tell the teacher about the camping trip so I could say my goodbye.  The first thing he told the teacher was “Connor choked” (Logan’s code-word for puked), which apparently was one of his highlights of the outing.

    We planned a practice camping at the Kao’s huge backyard this weekend, and the Tsaos were able to join us as well.  We packed the SUV up with all the essentials, and arrived at their house before 5pm.  It was a hot weekend, so we decided to take a swim too.  The boys were so excited to play with the toys at their house that it took some convincing before we got to the pool to join Mckayla and Marcus.  Connor was reserved and just wanted to hang by the poolside, but he eventually enjoyed floating after the initial unhappiness entering the water.  Mckayla was super excited playing in the water while Logan and Connor enjoyed using the water shooters.  After maybe 20-30minutes, Connor had enough of swimming and preferred being wrapped up by towel and sitting under the sun.  By then, the kids were hungry, so we left the pool and got ready for Ted’s famous bbq ribs.  Connor joined Mckayla and Marcus at the table; and even tried some cherry tomatoes but he was not a huge fan.  They were all hungry and loved eating corn before the ribs arrived.  Connor is not a big protein eater, but he enjoyed a few bites of the ribs too.  Logan, on the other end, rather sat at the adult table with us, and ate two ribs to the bone along with two pieces of corns.  The Tsaos arrived when the kids had just finished eating and was running around the yard.  After everyone finished the dinner, it was time for smores.  Logan and Connor never had that before, and they loved it as much as the other kids.  After having chocolate all over their faces, the kids all got cleaned up and got ready for bedtime.

    Brandon and Peyton were already inside their tent with Dave and Mckayla and Marcus with Ted when we arrived to ours.  The boys were so excited and helped get the sleeping bags ready.  Logan wanted to sleep next to me, but was fine after I offered holding his hand instead.  He was very good laying down the entire time without making any noise.   Connor, however, was quite hyper, kept popping up and down, and played with his flashlight.  We finally had to take away the flashlight, resulting in a short cry, before he laid down nicely and fell asleep.  It was after midnight when Connor started moving around again.  He must not be comfortable sleeping on the ground that he kept twisting and turning a lot, sometimes even sleeping on and off of me.  He also asked for water several times too.  Once he said to me “In” and pointed to the direction of the house, and another time saying “done” probably referring to camping.  He finally was moving so much that he woke Logan up too.  After a long while, Stuart and I had to rearrange our sleeping bags along with moving Logan to the other side of Stuart to separate the boys.  Connor finally calmed down and laid down, but he suddenly sat back up and threw up.  We heard the noise, and I immediately grabbed my jacket just in time for his second let out.  He was obviously unhappy by then; and at this point, I had to take him inside the house to clean up and to stay in a spare room for the rest of the night.  Once I put Connor on the bed, he immediately turned to his tummy and he was out in a second.  According to Stuart, Logan was wide awaken by the commotion.  He was still good staying in his sleeping bag, but it took a long time before they both could fall back to sleep.

     At 6:15am, I heard the Tsaos and Logan/Stuart come inside the house.  Later on, Ted along with Mckayla and Marcus also woke up.  All of them, Brandon, Peyton, Mckayla and Marcus, slept well in their tents, and this was the first time Marcus spent the night inside the tent.  When Connor woke up, he was as happy as usual again.  The kids had cereals while Dave went out to get the adults some pastries too.  Connor did not seem to be as hungry as usual, did not even want fruits, but was happy to try granola with milk and had a huge cup of milk too.  After breakfast, we all just relaxed and talked while the kids played.  Connor seemed more mellow and tired, and was content sitting on me a lot.  Before 11am, Connor was following Logan to the kitchen to play, I followed behind them only a minute later and found Connor throwing up a huge amount of liquid all over the ground.  Ted and Michelle helped me cleaning up the ground while I consoled Connor and cleaned him up.  We then decided that it was time to pack up and end this camping outing.  Connor was happy again then to say goodbye to aunties/uncles. 

    Connor fell asleep during the ride home, so we drove to pick up something for lunch to take home.  Connor continued to sleep for a total of 3 hours at home and seemed fine when he woke up.  He seemed quite hungry, so he had some apple sauce and bananas.  By the evening, he was back to his usual self, playing and running around the house.  Hopefully it was just something he ate that did not agree with him.  When we asked the boys if they liked camping, both Logan and Connor said yes, and Connor kept saying “night night” to say that we slept in the tent.  Unfortunately we had this drama with Connor, but the overall camping outing at the Kaos was still very fun.  Thanks to the Kaos for having us!

   After being at FA for 1 year and 7 months, Connor’s days there finally came to an end.  Today was also the last day the two boys going to the same school for at least a year.  Connor obviously does not know what it all means.  He was just happy being hugged by everyone, and when teachers asked if he would return to visit, he just said “Ya”. One of his teachers gave him two books that he was so excited and held on to them for a long time.  All of his friends also put together a huge painting as a goodbye gift for Connor.  To make today even more memorable, Connor decided to get into a couple of fights too.  One of them was with a younger boy and resulted in a bruise on Connor’s face.  The other one was fighting for toys with his good friend Raz and ended up giving Raz a bite.  Here are some pictures of Connor with his teachers and friends.  He will definitely miss them!

     The Toddler Room is decorated with the students’ family photos.  According to the teacher, Connor was playing near one of our photos by himself, then suddenly he turned to the photo and started kissing it.  He later realized that the teacher was staring at him, so he smiled shyly and looked away.  The teacher said it was such a cute moment.  She also told me that Connor is nice to his classmates; he helped pushing one of the toys out of the way, so a classmate was able to climb over.  Here are some fun photos I have been trying to capture lately as his time at the school winds downs.

     The boys are going to start their new schools soon, and I am starting to get nervous and sad.  The boys and I will definitely miss the school that they have grown up in.  Both boys have bonded to the teachers and made many friends. 

     Today was an orientation visit to the new school for Connor.  I picked Connor up from his current school at 3pm and met up with Stuart at the new school.  When we arrived, the classroom was very quiet as there were only one teacher and three students remaining.  The half-time students and the other teacher had left for the day.  My coworker’s daughter Bailey, either recognized me or was being friendly, came over to Connor and us quickly.  It took us just a few minutes to get oriented, then we encouraged Connor to sit down to play.  Connor was just a little shy, but was curious with the different jobs “trays of toys/activities”.  Connor would pull a chair next to him for me to sit on, then he was happily playing with the jobs.  He followed our instruction to return each tray before getting a new one, and he went through several of them.  Connor seemed to have warmed up to Bailey, preferred sitting at her table, but later he did agree to move on to the other table to join the other two classmates.  We let him play for quite awhile as we were waiting for the outside playtime.  Everyone got ready to go when it was time, and Connor followed their leads with just a little encouragement from us.  He happily played in the structure until he spotted the two toy houses on the side.  He migrated over to play inside, and eventually the rest of the kids followed too.  Connor seemed quite comfortable with everyone.  Hopefully it will go as smoothly next week when he officially starts.