He was up at 6:57. Seemed pretty well-rested and back to normal at first. He watched a Puffin Rock and we got going. But he immediately started to stress out about school and wanted to stay at home. He did remember when we turned the light on last night, looking for the cockroach. He had said something about the light and Carly turned it off and he went back to sleep. “When mama turned on the light last night…” His main complaint this morning was that the nature walk was too long and he didn’t want to do it. He has never mentioned this before, and last week had said he should wear his shirt with animal tracks on it every Friday for nature walk.
Eventually, we got going just before 6:40. When I tried to say something about it he barked, “Let’s talk about it when we get to school!” Walk to school was okay. But at school the worrying over the schedule began. The teachers then started to throw hand grenades into discussions over the schedule. First was the announcement that there wasn’t a nature walk,but Fitness Friday up on the grass. The whole elementary school (and some middle?) was up there and there was music playing and 4th graders, then a P.E. teacher, leading some dance/jazzercize exercise time. I went up with them and held August most o the time and we danced around.
August had said I could leave after that, but as they lined up I tried to hand him off to a teacher but they missed the cue and didn’t take his hand. I had to walk him down the stairs, then there was more uncertainty. We sat on the bench and he said he just needed to know how many more minutes of outside time there was before circle time. We went and asked and they said “20 minute”, which was a lovely answer, as I had said 30. But then they added “…and then we’re going to an assembly.” Well that led to a whole lot of worrying about the assembly. Eventually Andrea ran through the schedule, but because of the assembly and other things we don’t usually include it was a lot more items than our usual discussions and he thought it was going to be an extra long day. This led to me writing out the entire schedule for him to prove it was a normal day, with times attached.
Through all of this there was a lot of crying and thus tons and tons of snot and lots of trips to get more tissues. Eventually we had to do a crying leave. I was reluctant to do it when they weren’t armed with tissues and I felt bad bout making them to hold hands with a kid covered in snot. Also, when Andrea would try to take his hand he’d say things like, “Don’t grab me! I’m going to be bad! I’ll be too loud! I need to be outside the whole time!”
I left at 9. I went up on the sidewalk and listened to him calming down. It was taking several minutes, but sounded like they were able to do their circle time. He just wasn’t joining in. I waited for 5 minutes or so. He still wasn’t happy, but was quieter.
I rode my bike home, then came back at lunch. When he came out, the first thing he told me was that he’d had a cookie at snack time. I think Yaya had brought them. That would be the first thing that he’s eaten on his own at preschool this year. Then he handed me the bottle cap. He had spotted it against the wall this morning in the middle of being upset. He had held onto it and now gave it to me to save for home.
Sitting at the table, he told me about Rosh Hashanah and that they’d had honey and apples for snack. He ate that as well. Derin sat across from him and talked to us. Told us he’s going to Switzerland for vacation this weekend. Also, he had been carrying my hat around and showed me how he could spin it in circles. Then he asked me to write down his anthropology notes:
- Some people were playing police
That’s it. He told me of the morning, “I thought that if I’m sad you’d change it to no check-ins, sneakily.” He cleaned the whole table and I left as they were lining up to go back in.
I worked in the library, then sat at the picnic table 9my bench was taken) He ran to me. We talked to Andrea about the meeting and arranged to meet over on the grass. We went over to Mandy’s classroom and Carly got him hanging out with them. Andrea and Marion came over and we met sitting at a picnic table outside one of the language classrooms. We were quite disappointed in the meeting, as it wasn’t a conversation about his progress, but 30 minutes of telling us I needed to stop checking in at lunch. Which literally could have been a 5 second conversation or email, as in my last email I had said they could let me know if they thought we should do something different about the check-ins. And there was no discussion of meeting his interests or needs or of his strengths.
Contrast that with a minute later when we went over to where August was hanging out with Mandy and the three girls. Mandy commented on his memory, they had been impressed when he was investigating how many “supports” the ping pong table had, and he looked at. Set of lockers and said how many were open without counting them. She was impressed he could visually see the numbers like that.
Gaby had taught him the word ‘nuby’, so that was the word of the day. It sounds like it kind of a gamer term for someone who hasn’t learned something, like ‘idiot’, but they were using it in a sillier sense. He said “Everyone in the whole school except me…is a bit (nuby).” I had bought popsicles from the cafeteria and Grace went and got them out of the freezer and they had them. August chose mango. Carly went up to her classroom and we talked to them a bit more. I told Mandy and Matt about the project for Sabeel.
August and I went to Carly’s classroom. Carly said I could head home, as I was going to ride my bike. They were setting up to do some painting when I left. I had a little time to listen to more of my audiobook and some Nirvana (#17) before they got home about 4:50.
He ate the rest of her lunch from the cafeteria. He pretended he was a kid who forgot his lunch from home. Carly went upstairs and he and I watched Brain Pop Jr. videos. He was still hungry so I made French toast and he ate two pieces. We then read The Unexpected Love Story of Alfred Fiddleduckling and then Zachery Zormer Space Transformer in Skybrary.
Carly took him up for a bath and got him ready for bed. I said goodnight and he was asleep about 8.
Fitness Friday:
Rosh Hashanah song:
Running to me and Reia’s birthday:
Another song:
Looking big
Fitness Friday
Making Mandy nervous on the stairs
Mango popsicle
Getting ready to paint
