School days and school woes

    Nixon finished his first week of school last week. He had Monday off, for Labor Day, but went 4 days in a row after that. He's adjusting but it's difficult. We've had a couple phone calls from his teacher, he's tattled on himself for bad behavior and we've been working on his behavior at home.
   The problem is: how do you correct behaviors that you never see at home? That's our current situation. We're practicing things at home and working on developing a routine but it's only been a week, we can't work miracles.

    We've resorting to a system of stickers and a reward (aka bribe). He needed 8 yellow or green smiley face stickers to get his reward. He did get it, yesterday. He had 4(!!) green days in a row!

    After sitting down and talking to him, after one kind of awful day and one phone call to Mac, and really got to the deeper issue he's having. It's so awful I can't even share it with you!
    I'm kidding.
    The heart of the issue is he misses us. He wants to go home and see us. And, if you knew how his preschool used to react to his tantrums, his current behavior makes sense. His preschool would call us to come pick him up if he was acting especially awful, which he did (A LOT) after I started working full-time. Little did I know then that it was all a ploy to get more time with me. Which also explains why we NEVER see the behaviors he does at school, at home.
    After finding this out, and explaining that in Kindergarten he won't get sent home unless he's being suspended (oh yeah, that's already been mentioned to us....more than once, by the teacher and the administrators), I came up with a solution. We took 3 selfies, as a family, and Nixon got to pic 2 of them. I printed out the 2 pictures he chose, put them in his backpack and told him if he starts to miss us he can ask for the pictures at school. I also explained it to his teacher, who seemed shockingly impressed with my solution.

    As I said, he had 4 good days.
    Then came today and he had an awful day! He was disruptive (usually his starting point of missing us), he was removed to another room where he threw things at the teachers aid and then the vice principal. Then he spit at them! Fucking SPIT, y'all! I can not for the life of me stand spit! It's vile, gross and incredibly disrespectful.
    Finally, after a struggle to sit in a chair, he finally calmed down and hugged the teachers aid. He then went over to the vice principal, said he needed a hug because he missed his mommy and asked her for a hug.
   During the phone call, from the vice principal, I listened. I didn't say a word. Until she was done and she said something about Nixon missing me. Then I cut in and explained the photo-in-the-backpack plan. She had no idea what I was talking about and I was more than a little annoyed! There seems to be a communication breakdown and Nixon is getting the short end of the stick as a result.

     The vice principal also informed me the school's councilor is going to work with Nixon and get a behavior guide of some sore going. I'm a little pissed because I had asked for a conference during the first week of school and still no response. I hate to say it, but this school is not going to like me because I'm not going to let them run the show much longer. This momma bear is getting ready to growl!

   
     I'm other news: Nixon recently started complaining of leg pains. Yesterday, when he woke up (at nearly 7am on a school day!), he hugged me and I thought he felt taller. So I got the tape measure and he is now a smidge under 4 feet tall. At his doctor's appointment last month he was 46.5 inches!