He was up at 6:39. I went up and we lay in bed for ten minutes. He was then ready to head downstairs. We read It Starts with a Seed. Decided that the word of the day is ‘arboreal’. He watched the StoryBots episode about why you can’t eat dessert all the time. That ran a little late so we had to hurry out the door. Got to his classroom right at 8.
At school we sat out at their side playground and read The Case of the Hungry Stranger. He then requested that I check in on him. I asked how many more days he needed me to check in. He thought about it and said “Two”. I was able to leave about 8:15.
I rode my bike back at 12:30, finishing listening to The English Patient on the way. They were finishing up looking at a book on the floor. He came over to me, and Marion had a talk with us, saying he hadn’t done anything today. He had told her he would just stand for two hours. And hadn’t eaten any snack. We talked about discussing in advance at least one thing that he would try to do the following day, so he had a goal to work on. August tried to say that there wasn’t anything that was learning.
I helped him get his lunch and go outside. He told me he didn’t want to eat anything and wanted to save his food in case he needed it. I told him I would stay while he was eating, and that worked. He ate some of the rice and mushrooms, grapes, apples, applesauce, and carrot.
But then he got upset about rest time and got really sad. But we went and sat on the PKB bench and I talked about sneakily playing with something during rest time. I also made the point that rest time was all about doing nothing, which he had successfully done all day. He liked the sneaky idea, but also didn’t want it to be sneaky – he wanted his teachers to know it was okay for him to play with something. We went in and I got him a few letter tiles to play with. He sat on the mat with those and was playing with them when I left. He had his timer as back up (when I had walked in earlier he had told me “You forgot the timer!” I showed him I had put it in his lunch.)
I was able to leave at 1:10. I returned at 3 with the car. We sat in the classroom and ate some of the bread that the class hadn’t eaten. I looked around the room at the toys to think about things he could choose to do during indoor exploratory time. I asked what his favorite thing in the classroom was and he directed me to the easel wall and told me that his favorite thing was scratching off the old paint. We talked about the blocks that he liked and I suggested that I could give him challenges in the morning for him to build later, like a power plant.
We saw Anna and I asked her why she’d drawn an ice cream scooping machine on the thank you card she gave August. She said she had started with just drawing ice cream, but then realized it needed to have a machine since it was August. So a total coincidence that August had really liked the Edward McScooperhands machine in the 26-Story Treehouse last year. I thought maybe he had told her about it. This conversation came after August noticed that none of the teachers (they were all in PKA for a meeting) were wearing his bracelets. But Anna said she had it in her special place with all her other jewelry.
We went back out the PKB bench. I started talking to him about not doing anything, or not playing with other people, and he said, “Well, that’s just my thing.”
I took his timer back into the classroom. When I came out he was looking down through the bench. He told me, “To the ant the brick is a lot of space; but to us it’s not a lot of space.”
He ate some bread and other things. We talked about him not doing anything. He seemed to understand Marion’s concern, thinking that she thought that he was bored. I asked why he had told Cherie that Lydia was his best friend at school and he said it was because when he was partnered with her she was nice to him. And e says he hasn’t been playing with the other kids because they don’t play the games he likes to play – like building things or really cooking things. The things he does with me. Finally, I was asking him if he was thinking about how to play with the kids when he wasn’t playing with them. He lit up at this idea and agreed that that was it. And he explained that he wasn’t doing anything because that gave him more energy for thinking. And he felt optimistic that he would start playing with them more.
He was ready to head to the playground. He had asked me to bring his iPad after school as he really wanted to play on the play on the play structure. I said I was going to send mama a message, so to play something by himself for a few minutes. He chose the Mammals app because he said it was easy for him: “Well, the easiest for me. Maybe another kid has a different choice.” I thought that was an interesting statement, after already considering things from the perspectives of others when talking about Marion and the ant.
We played up there for 10 minutes or so. We saw Grace babysitting Taya while Cassie was at the union meeting. August and I went to the library. He returned Magic Tree House #24, It Starts with a Seed, and The Case of the Hungry Stranger and we checked out the next three Magic Tree House books, 25 to 27. He let me go in the bathroom and change into my swimsuit and he stayed out in one of the red chairs and played a minute of iPad. Carly showed up as I was going to get him to change.
We went to the pool. They went to change together, then joined me in the pool. He got in without floaties first, and talked about the idea of learning how to jump in the pool. We played around until it closed at 5.
As we walked to the car he spotted a skeleton in the window of the art room. He liked it, but then invented a machine to show all the layers and systems, like in the anatomy app. He wanted to show the art teachers his app.
We got home at 5:30. He had a meltdown over Carly making him hold her hand and practice crossing the street, then when I stopped him from breaking apart a piece of styrofoam he found near our gate.
He calmed down ate a bowl of curry for dinner. He showed Carly the ant nest in the Insects app, which he had started playing at the playground. He was then playing other apps, doing his 20 minutes, but then got upset when it was almost over. Stopped the timer at 3 minutes when he stopped. But then he fooled me, coming back to the iPad, but then when I asked Siri to start the timer again he immediately left the iPad. He thought that was pretty funny.
They opened the caramel ice cream today and took their bowls outside to eat it. He came inside and did learning games on the iPad with me. Put a few words in Writing Wizard, then I reluctantly let him play the Sesame Street word cookie app. But he at least learned one new word: “Flit! That can be a word of the day!”
I took him up for his bath. He was really seeming sleepy, and whined about going to the bathroom. But then once in the bath he wanted to play. Put soap in and he agitated to make bubbles. He put bubbles on his face Nd called himself “Bubble man”.
On the way back downstairs he saw Candyland and really wanted to play it. Downstairs Carly saved me by playing with him, but he lost interest after about 30 seconds. He said he was hungry, but was then upset about food choices (his leftover lunch). He agreed to a slice of apple, then Cheerios. He was in the bathroom upstairs, playing in the sink, I think. As Carly came in he turned around and gave her a grumpy look and said, “You’re not good parents…you don’t let me make any decisions.” Funny, more than it was harsh.
Similarly, in on the bed he started with something mean, but it was actually a well-stated, calm statement of his feelings: “I can’t stand you…You annoy me when I am p
laying games and you tell me I have to stop.” I read a few chapters of Magic Tree House #25 to him. He got his water bottle and we filled it. Disaster though as he tried to set it next to my tea mug on the dresser and knocked over the mug. Literally the most destructive spill he’s done, as it got a couple books, and may have spelled the end to the table runner from Vietnam. I left them after reading a couple more chapters and he was asleep around 8:10.
Reading at school in the morning:
Ice cream:
