I woke him up at 7:15. He watched a couple Pink Panthers and we got ready. He rejected the blue polo shirt and asked for a different one. That’s new. He wanted a pink shirt. He was fine with the idea of dance class after school, in fact had said something about it just being a normal day of school before that, but when we got to his classroom he changed his mind. He started to insist on a check-in at lunch. I told him could come at 3. That didn’t appease him, and I handed him to Andrea after a minute. She mentioned something about how they needed to take some photos together.
I went up to the library and business office and figured out how to pay for his dance class. I also picked up a free copy of Teaching Grammar in Context that I thought Carly might like.
When I came back in the afternoon it was about 2:55 that I walked down. He was poking his head out of the door and looking for me over on the bench. He was happy to see me, and we went inside for a few minutes. The bus kids were already gone. Candy was running an ice cream shop and I got ice cream from her. She asked August what kind of ice cream he wanted and he said “bubble gum.” Andrea told me that he’d worked with her to take photos for big schedule they’re making. August explained that the kids would be able to tell what the schedule was based on what was in the photos. Sounds like what they had last year in PKB. Great for a couple reasons: a schedule like that is exactly what he’s been wanting, and it really seems like Andrea’s taken a lead on including August as a helper with projects. Seems to be working so much better with him than Marion’s focus of him needing to be independent and self-directed.
I took him upstairs just after 3. August made sure I’d be outside on the bench. He insisted on the PKA bench. We saw Amelia and she said she wasn’t quite ready for class to start, but he could go in to PKC and hang out with Omri. He ran off that direction with nary a glance back at me. I went out and sat on my usual bench (he can’t tell me what to do!) and studied Hebrew.
He came out a little after 4. We discussed the schedule thing with Andrea, then sat on the PKA bench. He had eaten half his cookie and part of his lunch again, and for snack he had eaten the cereal bar in his snack bag. So, that’s another concern that I think we’ve now overcome. He ate the other half of the cookie and recorded a video to tell Carly about dance class. He sang about how he loved the first dance class. He didn’t provide details, but he said they’d acted like animals earlier in Play Ball with Dion.
Trying to change up our sitting and photo spots a bit, after he took a few macro lens shots we moved over to the other side of the elementary and sat outside of a 1st grade classroom. He ate some more, then I remembered that I had a container of cookies for the Kerns to deliver. So we walked over to Mandy’s classroom to deliver them. August had started to act tired as he sat on the 1st grade bench. She wasn’t there, so we set the cookies on her desk and put a note on it that said “1 per Kern”.
It was close to 5 and I suggested we go see mama. He wanted to play one round of the science lab game first so we sat outside her classroom and did that. We were almost through the script (I pointed out how the whole thing is a story that August has written and he seemed pleased with that realization – I should write it up to him as a story) when Carly spotted us. We followed her upstairs and too her classroom. He and I lounged on the beanbags and he was quite lethargic. I joked about how Carly’s classroom might be making him sick, as the last time he was like that in her classroom he ended up with a fever at home. We call that foreshadowing…
I took him to the bathroom and we watched a few minutes of Sarah and Duck. Wee then headed home. I carried him to his bike and he was very cuddly. He was quiet on the bike on the way home. We were close to our park when he didn’t steer us around a planter thing and I had to stop. We asked what was going on and he said, “I’m really sleepy.” Carly picked him up and carried him part way, then I took him. He perked up to ask, “Is it possible to have just a mama or just a dada?” We said yes, and explained and Carly added that it’s possible to have two mamas or two dadas. So he was asking, “What about 3 dadas?…99 dadas?” As we got to the house he asked, “Is it possible to not go to school?” We talked about homeschooling, etc. and then he was asking about the earth not having any schools, which I said was impossible as there actually are schools, but then he said, “Think back in time…” And I had to admit that there was a time before schools. We also talked about other ways of learning, and reasons why people might not be able to go to school, like they don’t live near one. So we were speculating on how far away you could live from a school. He asked if 2000 kilometers was possible, and I said Antarctica is probably the farthest you could get away from a school.
We were home at 5:40. He watched Pink Panther and later some of the marble videos. He had teriyaki rice and veggies for dinner. He said above his lip felt hot. I couldn’t feel it, but Carly thought she could. We took his temperature and it was 38. A little high, and we didn’t really force it in his mouth, either.
He played a little school with Carly, but was clearly tired, and after a few minutes he said he was ready to go up to bed. She took him up and got him ready and brushed his teeth. Skipped a bath though. He tried to convince her to skip brushing his teeth by saying, “I know that teeth brushing is important but getting more sleep when you’re sick is even more important, right? Right?” I came up and told him we didn’t have a word of the day yet and he said, “Just talk about stuff with mama and I’m sure I’ll find a word of the day with that.” Which we laughed at, but then she told me what he had said about brushing his teeth and said that was a good use of concession and rebuttal. He excitedly said, “Two words of the day!” I left them at 7:05.
He fell asleep, but after 8 we heard a noise. He was coming down the stairs. He told Carly “You weren’t up there.” She went up with him for awhile, then at 8:20 he was back down, awake. She got him Cheerios and they read the Red Wagon book. He remembered he hadn’t had a cookie because he hadn’t finished his dinner earlier. He ate a big piece of carrot and a couple slices of apple and I let him have a cookie. We then read a few chapters of Magic Tree House #31. We added ‘cove’ as another word of the day as I looked up photos to show him what a coves is. They went back up at 9:20 and fell asleep around 9:45.
Discussing dance class and his day:
Playing school with mama:
Waking up
Ice cream stand
Outside first grade
Delivering cookies
Doing the science lab game
