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poop beetle: Nap Time
1.2003
Awais doesn't want to go to school. Ever. He says he wants to destroy the school so he won't have to go. I don't know where he gets words/ideas like "destroy", probably from school.
He likes the teachers, the kids are o.k., there are great toys, lot's of outside time, arts and crafts, a water table (which I think is so cool. It's a big table full of water and kids get to stand next to it and splash).
The problem is nap time. At 6:30 in the morning he'll ask if it's a school day and I'll say "yes" and he'll start getting upset about nap time.
Sometimes, around 8:30 in the evening, the night before a school day he'll ask if tomorrow is a school day and I'll say "yes" and he'll start worrying about nap time.
He's not a sleeper. If he manages to sleep at school, which is probably for the best considering how much anxiety he feels about not being able to sleep- he can't get to sleep at night.
Bedtime's getting later and later. But at this point it's not the sleeping, but the fear of not sleeping. 4 years old and already saddled with a phobia. Man.
People joke about how great it would be to have nap time at work. But do you remember? I do.
A crinkly plastic mat, a stingy little blanket, no pillow. Laying on a floor that is concrete covered by a thin stain resistant carpet. Laying there with 15-20 other kids and being commanded to "lay still!".
I remember. It was torture. No whispering, no moving. Laying there with maybe a crumb of play dough to stare at- if you were lucky. Feeling like it would never end. Feeling like there was no way you were going to be able to lay still. Any minute you would lose all control over yourself and wiggle. And then get yelled at to "settle down!". And you couldn't do it, every part of you refused to settle down and this would never be over. And then somehow the gods would show mercy and you'd fall asleep.
But sometimes Awais doesn't fall asleep at all. And there is nothing I can do to help him.
