School tired

Kabouter's been going to school for over a month now.  He's doing quite well according the feedback we receive and he seems to be happy to go. The first weeks he seemed to cling firmly to the hand of his teacher or the teacher with playground duty. He didn't want to nap at noon though but walks around at the playground, picking flowers, watching the trains come by , ...

Since 2 weeks I notice a change when I arrive to pick him up: he greets me as enthusiastically but then he starts running around, goes greet other children again and moves around freely unintimidatedly by the bigger kids.  And when we leave the school premises he waves goodbye to all teachers, who all seem to know him.
The school teacher sends us newsletters so we can keep track day by day what they'll be doing, all related to the theme they are working on "mother's day,   the farm, bugs in a spring garden, ...".  Crafting, games, the story reading, ...is all related.   In that month they've done an excursion to a toddler puppet theatre and they visited a farm.  Pretty cool.

We notice new expressions in his language ( "1, 2 , Start Loooopen, Stop!"   "dat is niet flink"    , ...).
Since this week his best friend joined him in class but he also talks about other kids in the school which is a good sign.












However on our way home he changes. The initial babbling on our walk becomes quiet and the eyes get heavy.  Several times already he was sound asleep by the time we are home.  And if he isn't, he hangs and clings to us, insists in climbing our lap and sometimes falls asleep there.  The first week wasn't too bad, but the fatigue has built up steadily until it peaked in week 3-4.
He can be very very irritatingly clingy.  It's hard to be mothering both children on my own when he insists in climbing on me constantly , pulling my arm, hanging on my leg ...ugh.  And there's tears often without any valid reason  e.g. because a piece of chicken meat fell of the bone he was nibbling on.  Ugh.

On the other hand, he goes to bed earlier now which leaves more of an evening as well, so that's an advantage.  And it's sometimes very cute when he falls asleep.  Before school had started, I had stress how to keep him occupied on the free Wednesday afternoons but so far that has not been an issue: he naps for a couple of hours to catch up fatigue.

So it's a bit of a dilemma: should he sleep right away for an hour after coming home (as he sometimes does) and then he catches a second breath and goes to bed a bit later. Or should we keep him awake and truly put him in bed very very early?  I don't really know, we do a bit of both right now, also depending on the rest of our agenda.

I am very curious how it will evolve.
















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