Let me start off by apologizing in advance that Cassady is not mentioned in this post....apparently she has this nursery thing down. Connor on the other hand is struggling. The first week, my visiting teacher was brave enough to scoop him up and take him into the primary room and stay with him the entire 2 hours and I was able to attend both my meetings (after a quick cry in the foyer because for those of you who don't have a child like this, it was my first Sunday without him in the 2 years since he was old enough for nursery). Connor would never go to nursery, he would scream and cry and throw fits (and objects) and it wouldn't matter if I tried to stay with him or not and so I would give up or we would leave after sacrament meeting. So fast forward to this week where as quickly as my visiting teacher took him into primary, there she was bringing him right back out....bad sign!!! Then we stood in the hallway for a few minutes while he threw himself on the floor screaming things like "Don't look at me" or "I don't like you" to anyone who knelt down to talk to him. I was mortified. I decided he wasn't winning this time and his teacher asked if I would stay in with him for a while so we sat down in some tiny little chairs and Connor would yell at anyone who looked at him. He wouldn't stay in his chair or sing the snowman song (who doesn't love the snowman song?????) and at one point my eyes started welling up and I thought to myself....who is this child? where did he come from? It broke my heart a little bit to see the reactions of people around us and hear the comments from people in the hallway because I knew they weren't seeing MY Connor. They weren't seeing the real Connor. So primary winds down and they are getting ready to dismiss the classes to their rooms and a little Sunbeam in Connor's class starts to cry. And there goes MY Connor running to her and putting his arm around her and telling her not to cry. He told her it would be ok and he walked that way with her the entire way to class. He went on to class without me, turning back and saying "it's ok mom, you can go now, I can do it by myself" and so I went. This reminded me of an article I read recently posted by a dear friend of mine. As the article states, we are busy moms who more often then not lose our tempers and I was caught up worrying about what I must look like or what people thought of my son instead of how I could best help him. It was in that moment watching him in the hallway where I realized that was the first time I REALLY saw him that morning. My loving boy. It was one of "God's moments" as the article states that he gives us to help us carry on. I went on to relief society with a renewed strength that Connor will get this and that instead of focusing on what a challenge he can be, I need to really focus on him. Eventually we will conquer Sunbeams together!
