So the downside to an action-packed weekend is a tired preschooler.  I did not give him enough down-time this weekend and that became painfully apparent when I tried to get him into the car this morning.  He was happy, ate breakfast, got dressed (that’s been remarkably easy lately), brushed his teeth, and then hid in the living room.  I had to physically put him in the car while he hit and kicked me and screamed that he did not want to go to school.  He settled down on the drive, but started up again when we got there.  Eve helpfully wore his backpack and walked into the school (I’m SOO lucky that they don’t usually act up together!) and I carried Lex in, hitting me the whole way.  It was horrible.  He screamed when we got to his classroom.  He was overtired, I was up half the night with Eve (on top of my few weeks of 5hr nights) and very overtired myself and we were not a pretty scene!  Eve made herself at home while I tried, unsuccessfully, to get Lex settled down.  I cried, he cried, it was awful.  I asked the teacher if I should just take him home, but she said that would just reinforce the bad behavior (of course) and she said they are perfectly ok taking a screaming kid.  Ugh!!!    Eve and I heard him screaming all the way out of the school.  I felt like a horrible, horrible person and Eve hugged me and tickled me and did everything she could to make me happy.  She’s so sweet!!  I kept reminding myself that he did have fun the first few days and that he will settle down and have fun today too.  I headed to my friends house for some powerwalking!  Half way there I got a call from the school and immediately started looking for somewhere to turn around to go pick him up.  Instead it was his teacher calling to let me know that he screamed for about 2 minutes and then decided he wanted to read some books.  She said he settled himself in front of the bookshelf and stayed there until he was ready to play.  I was super relieved!!  Obviously.  I also had a good parenting thought as I remembered how we had told the teacher that he uses books to settle himself.  I think had we not told her that, she wouldn’t have known to guide him that way and wouldn’t have known to leave him be with the books until he was ready to participate.  At pickup time he was smiling and gave me a pretty fierce bear hug.  He said he loved me very much and missed me.  He also said he wanted to go back tomorrow.  Whewh!