Friday, September 28: Sleeping in and back to school

We let him sleep late this morning as he hadn’t slept well though the night. I went in at 8:35 and he woke up easily and seemed fine. I let him watch some Pink Panther as he ate apple and vitamins, then we got ready to go. We drove to school.

I dropped him off about 9:30. We had to wait a couple minutes for the class to come back from the Hockey Marathon. He and Andrea talked about taking more photos. He said they didn’t need to take photos of the hockey marathon as it didn’t happen regularly. He was talking to Andrea about it being Derin’s last day and about how they were about to have cookies for snack and I was able to walk off. I took my bike home.

I finished listening to Denton Little’s Death Date as I worked on a cover mockup for the Sabeel book. I then called the insurance company about school evaluation coverage (fully covered) and wrote an email about our bills. I then studied Hebrew and Arabic in the afternoon.

I picked him up just before 3. He was sitting on the carpet with Andrea and the other non-bus kids. We went out to the bench to eat. He said, “I love Emmett’s mom.” No idea where that thought came from. He did really like her as a yoga teacher. He spotted a cat and said, “103.” He ate a little and was excited about going swimming. I asked about the tea party and he said it was “super good” as they got more cookies. Had also had tea and used his straw which is always stored in the bottom of his snack bag. I re-read him the Lunch Robot comic and he said, “My science lab IS always dangerous…robots can only go up to 23 volts, and that was a million volts…”

We saw Cassie and she asked if we were going to play on the playground. We said we were going swimming, but he liked the idea of playing with Taya first. But first we had to finish our round of the science lab game. We had started over again with day one. We went over and he played around Taya and Gabriel (also in PKB with Taya) and his older brother. August was excited to show them all the macro lens and how it works. He did that, then was running and jumping on the swing on his stomach and really getting some good momentum. I tried to get him to do it later, but he wasn’t getting the same power into it. He was back to taking photos when Carly called. He talked to her for a couple minutes. Had a really good conversation with her. He said something to her about how she always talks to me so she could talk to him now.

Cassie and I were talking about the Supreme Court process and August kept taking photos and videos. He did a slo-mo of Taya going down the slide. He had another phone call with Carly, then she came over and found us. I realized that the pool closed at 4 today due to the Hockey Marathon, so we cancelled that plan. Then, Cassie said that August’s spots looked like hand, foot, and mouth disease. I realized that they did look a lot worse than when I had dropped him off. They were now on his hands and feet and bottom, and he said his throat was a little sore.

I did some research and was pretty convinced that was it (it starts with a fever and the spots come after a couple of days, and it hits most often in the late summer/fall) so we headed out. Stopped to fill up his water bottle and couldn’t get him to the car – people kept coming by, he didn’t want to move, Cassie went back to look for Taya’s water bottle, etc.

Finally, got him going. He had found a little square bead with Rs on it earlier, now he found a plastic piece and a golden leaf (like a decoration) lying on the ground. As I carried him out to the car he started singing a song that I was convinced was a song he had learned at school. The only lines I remembered were “This is the leaf for me. Shining in the golden sunlight, shining in the gold-like sunlight.” There were a few lines before that. But he told me he had just made it up. We left before 4:20.

He played Dragonbox Little Numbers in the car. At home I heated up his dinner for him and Carly made him a smoothie. We gave in and helped him eat/drink on the couch since he is still supposedly sick. He was watching Pink Panther – he was watching an episode about an ant eater that I remember – and I went up and filled out the paperwork for the psychologist. The read the Cam Jenson book again. I came down and they were discussing how he took photos with Andrea today. He said no one else helps the teachers, and that he didn’t think any of the other kids noticed or cared about taking the photos.

He played school with Carly. He arrived two hours before school started and was her helper. They played for a few minutes, then she took him up for a bath and washed his hair. Went pretty smoothly.

She trimmed his hair. He was being a fan and I had to turn him off so he would sit still. But then he was saying that we accidentally pushed different buttons: “You pushed the rocket button.” Downstairs he got a lollipop and we read Magic Tree House. Carly told me that ‘impersonate’ was a word of the day, from the Cam Jansen book, then August and I added selkie and dappled from this book. We finished reading Magic Tree House #31: Summer of the Sea Serpent.

We then read some books in Skybrary: Camille’s Team and Dilly Dog’s Dizzy Dancing. We also played. Couple rounds of his science lab game and the one where I am trying to build a tower of blocks as tall as him but he keeps growing and growing. It is a simple one, but he’s done it several times over the past week or so.

We went upstairs and started the Plants and Zombies book over from the start. Carly changed the sheets and pillow cases, but she’s quite worried about getting sick before her Week Without Walls Trip. So she slept in the other room and I put him to sleep on the big bed. I’ll sleep on the floor. It was about 10:15 that he and I started. We did one round of the science lab game, then I was singing songs. At 10:40 he sat up to ask if the clock said it was 1 or 10. I assured him it was 10 and he lay back down. He was really starting to scratch his feet and his wrists and bottoms. Finally, around 11 I was pretty sure he was asleep. My have been longer, but it was hard to tell as he kept scratching in his sleep. I got some of the cream and managed to put it on his feet, ankles, and hands. We will see how restless he is tonight. I’m afraid he won’t sleep very well.

Changing colors and changing back in his science lab game: