How Kayden Almost Lost His Star Day

Kayden's preschool has each kid be the Star of the Day where they get to be the line leader, fill out an "All About Me" poster, gets a special bracelet, gets to ring the bell to signal the end of  outside time and the end of play time, they also get to bring in a special collection, get to use a special pointer to point to the different things on their poster and get to decide what song is sang and what book is read for the day, and each kid gets to say one compliment about the Star of the Day.  It's.A.BIG.Deal, people, like big.  All the kids talk about who's next and what collections are being brought in, it's very fun for them, as well as the parents.

So, Kayden happened to be first on the list, after one boy had to reschedule.  So, the day before Kayden's Star Day he is sent home with THE poster.  We sit down to fill it out and oh boy, does all hell break loose. 

"Mom, you didn't write my name the right way!"

"What, yes I did, K-A-Y-D-E-N, what is wrong with it?"

"No, you didn't use the write letters!"

Eyebrows furrowed to almost form a unibrow, looking at his name, silently mouthing each letter to ensure they are all there and in the right order, then adding a very confused look to my now formed unibrow.

"Honey, what are you talking about?"

"You weren't suppose to make all the letter's big."

Hmm, wondering how I could rectify the problem, since my grown up self used a sharpie to write his name, not a pencil.  Something I am beginning to understand is very important when you have a preschool child, and I imagine it won't change until he hits high school.  AND we were only given one poster, ONE.

Not coming up with a solution, and trying to convince him it's ok and there isn't a single thing to get upset about, only upsets him more.  He melts down...fast.  I turn my back and send him to find a quiet place to calm himself down since all I was doing was making the issue worse. 

I put the sharpie up, to where I don't think he can reach it, because what mom in her right mind would place a sharpie within a five year olds reach?  I then turn my back to do the dishes and whatnot.  I turn around and that little sneak, who was screaming thirty seconds ago and is now oh-so-quiet had reached the darn sharpie and scribbled his name out.  Like, SCRIBBLED it out, there was not even a point on any of the letters that was visible, NOT A POINT, I tell you.

And I, who apparently can also be oh-so-quiet, screamed, "KAYDEN".  He jumped about a mile high, having not realized I had turned around from doing the dishes to catch him, and screamed and started balling his eyes out...again.  This project is not fun...at all!

Ugh, once again I send him off to find a spot to calm down, as I need to do the same.

Once we have calmed ourselves down, I call him back to the table and have him pick out a couple pictures that he would like to put on his poster.  There are several spots to fill out, including, "What I want to be when I grow up.", "My Favorite Place", etc.  One of the boxes asks to include a picture of what you look like and a picture of what your family looks like.  So, I offer a few different pictures to Kayden and he selects one picture of him and Katie.  I cut the 4x6 to fit in the box and I started with the legs.

OH MY GOODNESS! 

"You cut off my legs!"
"I have no legs!"
"You cut them off!"
"Me and Katie don't have legs!"
"I want my legs back!"
"Put them back, mom."
"You ruined my legs!"

I have no idea what to do at this point.  Like, huh?  I offer to order him a new picture of him and Katie so he can put it in his room AND the legs would be attached.  Nope.  I explained I had to cut the picture so it would fit in the box.  If I left the picture the original size it would cover all the letters and categories up and people wouldn't know what each one was.  I was a magician with no tricks up my sleeve.  He was beyond convincing, rationalizing, or explaining at this point.

He told me he doesn't want to do his homework, he doesn't like homework and he wasn't going to do it.

I gave him a choice of calming down for ten minutes or calling his teacher to explain to her why he wasn't going to have a Star Day and there would be no making it up and doing it another day.  If he chooses not to do it, that's it, no getting it later.

So, he calmed down, but still didn't want to do his poster OR call his teacher.  He wanted me to do it.  Um, sorry, Sir, but that would be a no.  This is your choice, your decision and your call.  I'm not doing your dirty work for you, that's all you!

So, once he thought about it more and calmed down he decided he wanted to do his poster after all, but I withdrew the option of using photographs, instead he had to draw all his pictures!

So, here is Kayden on his Almost Didn't Happen Star Day.  It was extra fun because dad got to come too!

 Showing off his dinosaur collection.

See the big black sharpie blob right there in the top middle of the poster, not a point visible from the original KAYDEN.

Thankfully things ended well on his actual day, not sure I could have handled another melt down over this Star Day.