Protection mode, the love of a mother

While Wynston was away over the summer living his best life fishing and crabbing in Grand Isle, Wyatt and I watched the TV series Serengeti. If you haven't seen it, it is a show on animal behavior in east Africa. It amazed me how similar the love of a mother is in all species. As I watched a baby zebra get separated from her mother while crossing a river my heart hurt for the mom. The mom tried to protect her fold from the rushing water but she was unsuccessful. She called out all day searching for her fold. You could see both the fold and the mom's fear and sadness as they searched for one another. After hours the baby fell to the ground from exhaustion. Wyatt and I figured she died. We looked at one another as tears started to well up in our eyes. The mom did find her baby ALIVE and the joy could be felt through the screen. Again, I cried tears of joy (I know I'm kind of a loser) but I could only imagine what she felt when she found her baby and was able to protect her again from the dangers in the world.

Over the past few weeks I have felt so much anxiety as I prepared for Wyatt to go back to school. Remember he has been home with me since March 12, 2020. There are so many changes that are happening this year and I feel like I am throwing him to the wolves and I can feel myself going into protection mode. I am trying to control as much of the new environment as I can but like the mama zebra I can't protect him from everything.

I have prepared him as much as I can for his new school and for the new school year. So I will take a deep breath and hand it over to his new team for the school year and know that I have done all I can. I can only hope that it will work out the way it needs to and that he will find a good group of kids to help him through the year.

****I wrote this blog right before school started and it's crazy how this is the one that is posting this week. I surely don't want to sound like a broken record but I was truly worried about sending Wyatt to school and how it was going to all work out and yesterday proved me right. All of the worry was for a reason. We received an email from one of Wyatt's teachers telling us he is blurting out and having outbursts and that we needed to talk to him about it. I understand that blurting out is not optimal in class but that is why we have plans in place and have given the teachers information to help manage it in the classroom. It is a known behavior that we prepared everyone for. So asking me to tell Wyatt at home to keep his mouth shut in class does nothing...I wish it would but his brain does not work like that.

So I guess this is why I was so upset last night while responding to her email. It took Patrick and I two hours to write and rewrite the letter. We don't want to burn bridges with the teacher or the school but we want to protect Wyatt from any issues that are out of his control, just like the zebras I talked about in the beginning. I never would tell Wyatt that the teacher wrote an email about it because if you think the relationship is strained now (7 DAYS INTO SCHOOL) it would be non-existent very soon. So I took a soft approach to dig in and find out what Wyatt thinks is going on. After a short conversation I realized why he is struggling...the directions for these assignments have SO many steps and he can't keep up or on task. When this happens Wyatt shuts down because he cannot organize his thoughts. He gives up on himself.

So as I kick myself for not having the in person meeting prior to school starting we will have a meeting with the teacher and the principal this week because I can't imagine what life will be like if we don't correct the course now. So say a little prayer for me for guidance and patience and a big prayer for Patrick because if you know him he was ready to storm the school and have a meeting last night to get it FIXED.

***I feel I have to follow up the follow up LOL. Today that teacher took what we said and wrote out a step by step list for him. Wyatt got home today and was so excited to show me the note that the teacher put on his desk. GREAT JOB TODAY!

I thanked the teacher for taking our ideas and putting them into action. She said he was outstanding today. She has already made his list for tomorrow.

Remember y'all: IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS THAT GO A LONG WAY!