They forgot his name tag

Reuben started his first afternoon session at nursery today. He'll be going Tuesday to Thursday afternoons then 8.45-3.15 on Fridays. He loves it there and has been getting on so well and then today we arrived, he was excitedly taking off his coat, throwing his bag in the box then went to the name tag table.

He got there and stopped. Stood staring at it blankly. It took me a moment to see what was wrong, and a millisecond to see what was coming next. He turned and looked at me, confusion written all over his little face. He looked back at the table. Frozen. He literally couldn't move on because he was stalled. His next move had been unexpectedly taken from him and he was now totally thrown.

Surely Mummy can save the day? Apparently not. I asked what happened to his name tag and they replied that they hadn't been able to find it and they'll probably have to make a new one.

Tried explaining that one to a child who has limited understanding and even less communication skills? Hmm. It's obviously not the nurserys fault, these things happen, that's not the point here. Poor Reuben is stuck at the launch deck because of a small piece of laminated card with his name and a Penguin on.

He went from excited, chatty and happy to be running in to play, to uncertain, virtually mute and hand-wringing in the space of 5 seconds.

I do know that abrupt mood changes are not uncommon inn toddlers, but as part of the bigger picture which is my son, this is one of the many things I worry about for him. He took quite a while of coaxing to engage with the room again, he kept looking at the table. Almost like he expected it to appear again, not quite believing that this had really happened.

I also know that people looking in may think that its just something he has to learn, flexibility. But I know in my gut that thia is not that simple. He can be flexible and distractions do occasionally work but not with certain things and certain routines. The safety of some routines give him freedom. I'm not a routine driven person so this doesn't come easily to me but where it is helpful to him, I'll do it.

So Dear Nursery, please please have found the tag by tomorrow, it might seem a small thing to us, but its the difference between being stranded in the pit stop and flying round the track to my little boy.
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