No Green Day!

St. Patrick's Day is here and I just got a text from my husband that my son is the only one not dressed in green at his social skills class that is meeting this morning.When I helped him pick out his clothes this morning, he wanted to wear his new shirt of his favorite major league baseball team, and I agreed it was a good choice. I admit, I didn't give it much thought. Not that I didn't know today's date. Probably because my son owns nothing green and for good reason.

When he was three and in his original preschool class, they were learning about colors this week back in March. Each day a new color was to be celebrated and the child was to wear that color and also bring a small item to place in the color jar. "Green Day" was to coincide with St. Patrick's Day. Each day I dressed him in the appropriate color and sent him off with his treasure for the jar. When it came to the day to wear green, he absolutely refused. He was not in any way going to wear green or put his item in the jar. At the time we did not have a diagnosis, and being a first time mom with my child in preschool for the first time I didn't dare break the "rules". Knowing what I know now about Jacob, I wouldn't have pressed the green shirt issue, but at the time I wrestled him to the ground determined to get his little green shirt on his body as he kicked and screamed.

We took off for school with his green item, an Easter egg, in his little Diego backpack. I left him there perplexed about the morning's events but thinking "Green Day" was behind us. When I picked him up that day, I found him sitting at his usual spot alone at the table while the other kids were finishing up with circle time. When he saw me he started to cry, and his teacher stepped outside to fill me in on the day. Jacob hadn't participated in anything that day. He refused to put his item in the jar, had a hard time in gym class during the parachute, and really didn't partake at all. We left, with me carrying my crying son to the car, and all he kept telling me was he wanted to take off that green shirt.

Since this was pre-diagnosis, it was all strange to me. What kid cares about a shirt color? And why couldn't he simply drop his item in the big color jar like the rest of the kids? And who doesn't like the parachute? I lived for that day in gym class as a child!

But like so many other warning signs at the time, I brushed it aside to him having a bad day. The green shirt was washed and hung in his closet never to be worn again. I tried to put it on him, and each time he became upset. Maybe it brought back reminders of that day at school.

The next year I naively assumed things would be different. Jacob had been at his new school for almost a year at that point in the peer model program for social issues, and was flourishing. I hadn't forgotten "Green Day" from the year before, but I assumed Jacob's four year old mind had. Of course, it hadn't and again he refused to wear a green shirt. This year I knew better and just let it go.

Every year since then I haven't mentioned wearing green on St. Patrick's Day. Today my son is in blue and if he comes home and wants something green like the rest of his class, I will help him figure something out. But maybe St. Patrick's Day is a reminder for him of a time where he felt really alone and misunderstood. And maybe it is a reminder for me of a day I want to forget as well. No mother wants to remember her child sitting alone at a preschool table unsure how to join the rest of the class while the others are singing bible songs. But instead, maybe I could look at it as a milestone of how far we have come. All of us. We have all grown in the past three years.