The Cool Big Kid

Kai went into the Toddlers' room when we arrived at the daycare this morning. He wanted to see if his best friend Aiden was there. It was my first time seeing him with the toddlers again since the beginning of September, and it was as big a shock as it was the first time I saw him with the big kids. I can't believe how much he's grown just in the last 2 weeks! The tables and chairs at the Toddlers are so much smaller, so are the kids there. As soon as we walked in, some of Kai's old playmates cheered, "Kai's here! Kai's here!" and very quickly they all surrounded him as if he was a super star. I guess in a way he is because he's a big kid now. It was really cute because the boys so wanted to talk with him, but they also seemed a bit intimidated (after all, Kai towers over everybody there). Two girls who were friends with Kai looked up at him with stars in their eyes, and one of them ran after him to give him a hug as we were leaving. "She really misses Kai," a teacher told me as she peeled the little girl's arms off of Kai's shoulders. Kai just stood there trying to conceal the big grin on his face.  

"Did you hear that, mommy? Hannah really misses me." Kai gloated as he galloped down the corridor to the big kids'. Mr. Romeo felt pretty damn good about himself at this moment.

 

We didn't get the same enthusiastic reception at the big kids'. In fact, things were already in full swing, and everyone was busy. No one said hi to us when we walked in. Kai shuffled his feet and moved closer to my legs when a tall girl who looks almost too old to be in the 3-to-5s was walking toward us. "Hi," Kai said sheepishly, "Look! I have a Lightning McQueen lunch box." That girl didn't even look at him. She just walked right past us to the bathroom! "Oh well!" Kai shrugged. "(s)He didn't hear me." I felt so bad for Kai and almost angry at the girl. Maybe she really needed to go potty, but a simple hi or a smile would've made him so happy. I immediately started wondering if he's shut down by the bigger kids here all the time or... gasp! is it possible he may be bullied?

 

I had to get out of this Mama Bear mindset, so I asked Kai to show me what he usually does. As we navigated around the arts and crafts tables and I looked at some of the kids, I felt as if I was shooting daggers at plausible bullies. I spotted a teacher sitting on the floor in the corner filling out what looked like a time sheet, and I wanted to bark at her and ask why she wasn't watching and making sure the children were playing nicely with one another (when, in reality, they WERE all playing nicely).

 

The teacher doing the time sheet greeted us. "Kai, can you show Raymond how to build a train track?" she winked at me as she talked to Kai. When Kai was eagerly showing Raymond how to snap the pieces of the train track together, the teacher looked up from the floor and said, "Kai is such a capable kid, and he really likes showing other children how to do thing." Oh great! Now I felt bad for wanting to bark at her and tell her how to do her job. "Yeah," I smiled, "He does that to us too at home."

 

Turned out, my worries were (as usual) totally unnecessary. As one teacher who has known Kai since he first started at the Toddlers told me when I went to pick him up this afternoon, Kai's one of the good kids who always help the teachers clean up. He's friendly to all the kids, and he's always ready to help. "He has really grown, eh?" the teacher said, "Since he came to the big kids', he has assumed a leadership role. To the 3-year-olds, Kai and Jack are sort of like the trend setters. The two boys decide what they want to do on the playground, and somehow others follow them."

 

"Okay, Kai! We gotta go home now. Say bye to Jack and Teacher Kate."

"Bye, Jack! Bye, Kate! Gotta roll now. Catch ya later (It's from the talking ball he got for his birthday)!!" Kai said as he galloped down the pathway toward the gate of the daycare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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