He was up at 7:15. He watched a little Sarah and Duck. We got ready quickly and drove to the school. We walked to the preschool, then the trouble started. I got him playing with clay, but when I said goodbye and got to the door he jumped up and said “Oh no! Dada!” We sat on the bench and had a tic tac, then I got him back in playing with clay again with Reia, making a sculpture sticking all the tools into the clay. But again, when I left he chased out after me. Third time I thought I could leave he was playing with the gears with Reia. This time I was halfway up the elementary school stairs and he came out the door and running after me.
I went back in and ended up staying through morning meeting. He stood, but was getting involved in meeting, then was excited when they called blue and green first at the end – both colors he was wearing. After meeting, I was able to leave him with Anna. She wasn’t holding him, and he sounded upset, but he didn’t chase after me.
I then saw him at library time. He ran in and said “Dada! Come with us!” Ilana read a book called Little Grunt and the Big Egg. He then went and checked out a book called Preschool to the Rescue. He wanted me to walk him back, which I expected. Back at the classroom he put the book in the cubby. He doesn’t like looking at books if we can’t read them, unlike most of the other kids who were sitting and looking at their books. He asked me “Can you stay for a minute?” I ended up reading the book to him, but then couldn’t leave after that. Things didn’t go well. We ended up sitting on the covered bench. Ms. Karen came out and he tried to run away from her, even though she was the one he made apple crumble with before library time (it is for the tea party tomorrow). She went back in, then Anna finally came out. She hadn’t tried much with August, which was understandable as Marion was gone. And so was Myriam. There were subs, but Anna was stretched thin. August didn’t seem to be recovering, and after a minute she said we could choose to do what we wanted. So we headed home.
Got here right before noon. He lay on the floor and held a balloon for awhile. We made water drink and ate some of his lunch stuff. He watched some Sarah and Duck, then several of the How the Body Works videos. We discussed pollution, and he asked me “Dada, what would happen if you missed your meeting with Maaian?” I told him how the meeting was about how I could spend more time in his classroom. He asked “Because you miss me?”
We had forgotten his bracelet this morning, but now he wore it as we drove back to school, leaving at 2:45. I dropped him off with Carly in her classroom. I went and met with Maaian and Marion and Anna. I just wanted to hear the idea. Maaian gave me the option of teaching a little project, three days a week, on praying mantises. And gave me a couple books to borrow. I thought it was a rather strange option at the time, but later was even less excited about it. If the idea is to figure out how to get parents involved in the classroom, having me actually be a teacher and do something that required extensive planning doesn’t seem like the right approach.
I went back and checked in on August and Carly. As I went all the kids from the Hebrew class asked where August was. August and Carly were playing school He said “My name is Icon and she is Ms. Althauser.” I walked home, leaving the car, and they were going to play hide and seek. They found new toys for August: there are hula hoops hanging up downstairs at the middle school, and they brought the big Jenga sort of blocks into her classroom. Oh, and they also played some chess. They played move-your-pieces-wherever-you-want chess and also started playing checkers. She said that he’s on his best behavior when he is playing in her classroom as he wants to be like her students, so when she says “My students would…” or “My students wouldn’t…” he really listens.
They were back before 5:40. He ate a bunch – soup and noodles. I started laundry. They then read Preschool to the Rescue. He spent a lot of time playing in the sink. All the dishes were washed and in the drying rack, so they ended up back in the sink. He drank warm water out of his straw bowl, and then used a straw to drink out of a bowl. We then made a new batch of iced tea. I was listing the kinds of tea we had and said spearmint tea. He heard that and said “Experiment tea!” So we decided to combine flavors and see what happened. We combined spearmint green tea, winter tea, white moon, and lemon and ginger.
I started my research on praying mantises with a Brave Wilderness video. August watched with me, then we watched a video on lobsters and one on bloodworms. he said “I have tin can foil in me.” after he found out bloodworms have copper in them. “So I’m an animal that sees very differently from every other animal.”
I took him upstairs to his bath. Bladder and rectum game. I washed his hair. Then dried it with the hair dryer. We discussed electricity. We went downstairs after 8:30. He was using all sorts of lightning bolts and stuff to destroy Carly, who was the impossible mud puddle from the Preschool to the Rescue book.
She took him up and got him ready for bed. I left them at 9.