Shades of his father.....

Ask my mom and dad what I was like as a little kid when it came to things like school, camp, etc: I was petrified. I was homesick. I had preposterous anxiety. I used to fear that people would forget to pick me up at school or Sunday School, rendering me abandoned and all alone. In my pre-adolescent years, I think I lasted three days at Boy Scout camp at Camp Squanto: Myles Standish State Forest  before screaming to my mom how I hated it so much and I wanted to go home--I cried every single day. Yet, somehow, I never suffered one single and solitary moment of homesickness at college. Go figure.

This anxiety has been passed along to my dear son Callum, and, truly, it is breaking our hearts. He started pre-school at St. John's School in Winlsow (seriously about 300 yards Winslow High) and we have never seen the poor kid act like this--not only does he absolutely hate school, but also he is OBSESSED with thinking about it when he is NOT in school. At night, he wakes up from bad dreams about school, asking what time it is and how long he has before he has to get up for school. This past Friday, he asked to see a calendar so he could count how many more days until he had to go back. Even on Saturday, the act of simply DRIVING BY St John's on our way to Agway made him start crying. I have never see the kid cry so much. Today I was having a completely separate conversation with Amanda about how we were being dismissed from school this Friday for our meet in Lewiston, when Callum yells from the back seat: "Would you guys mind not saying the word 'school' when I am around? I dont like that word."

Gosh we hope this changes. This is a tough one, and I am the one who both drops him off and picks him up: My day begins with him crying as I walk out the door. Daycare, when he was much younger, was never this tough.

Hopefully, since he inherited my propensity for extreme anxiety, he will make up for it by also inheriting my extreme good lucks, charm, and ability to work a room at Greek Engagement parties #shadesofTim.....