I’ve mentioned many times in regards to my wife leaving that the kids and I are going to have good days and we’re going to have bad days. Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been lucky enough to have more good days than bad. Unfortunately, today is a bad one.

Our morning started out well, and then it very quickly fell apart.

While getting ready for school, Emmett had a very emotional breakdown and became inconsolable. He screamed things about how we’re a broken family and how other families are happy and having fun, while we’re traumatized. Those are his words. He said a few other things but you get the point.

He’s demanding answers to things that only his mom can answer, but probably won’t and rightfully so. There are grown-up issues that they are simply too young to understand. The problem is that both Elliott and Emmett are extremely mature for their age and are not accepting the kid-friendly or kid appropriate answers they’re being given.

While they’re incredibly mature, they are not in the same place emotionally. They basically want answers to things they couldn’t emotionally handle.

I had a very difficult time calming him down, and Elliott wasn’t too far behind him, although he’s not expressing it the same way.

I spoke with the school, who’s aware of what they need to be aware of, in order to support the kids. I needed to let them know what was going on because, at the very least, we were going to be late. I decided that I would try a late start and see if that helped. The school agreed that was the best approach.

I took Elliott and Emmett with me to get Gavin’s blood work done. After that, we got donuts and went to get the tags on the car renewed at the BMV. Turns out my license was expired as well, so I renewed that at the same time. $100 later and I’m back on the road. I will say that the price tag sucks but I was in and out in less than ten minutes. You can’t beat that.

From there, I headed to school. Emmett was feeling a bit better and decided it was best if he went. Elliott however, began panicking at the idea of going to school. He started telling me he was too tired to go, and his head hurt. Both of those things may be true, but I suspected there was more to it than that and he just didn’t want to talk about it. I asked him if he was upset about anything else and he said no. I didn’t believe him, but I also didn’t push.

As we got closer to the school, he confessed that he was upset about his mom leaving again. He went into a much more in-depth explanation, but I’m going to leave it at that.

It took a bit of work to get him into the school building. I told him that we would go speak to the office and figure out what’s best. If that meant I take him home, that’s fine. If that meant him staying there, even better. I think the distraction is critical for him and being surrounded by people who love and support him is a good thing.

Emmett went to his classroom without an issue. Elliott and I met with the office staff. They are all aware of the split and are incredibly supportive.