Monday, October 8: yoga class and Ikea furniture

I started trying to wake him up at 7:15. He finally woke up at 7:30. A big night of eleven hours of sleep. The first thing he said to me was “What’s after rest time?” I was able to tell him it was yoga, which he hasn’t had in weeks and weeks. He watched one Pink Panther and we were on our way. We got to his classroom right at 8:10, but they were already in a meeting, planning Bibo’s birthday party. So apparently 8:05 is the new start time? Haven’t gotten a memo on that. He was a little hesitant, not knowing the schedule, but Andrea got up for something and came and got him and he went back to the circle with her.

I walked home and was there for awhile, then went to busy, busy Ikea. Got the chair that we had decided on, a set of bookshelves, a new 13 inch pan, and some smaller things, like a pack of paper for August. It was quite busy and I had to park almost at the end of the lot. Along line to checkout, so I had time to study Hebrew.

At home I hauled all the boxes into the living room, then did a first read through of the Sabeel book, which came back from the printer. Looks really good, but quite a few errors from the printer to correct. Also, they used the 10 minute sketch I had made just to illustrate an idea for the book cover as the actual book cover. If Omar had told me he liked the idea I would have spent some actual time on it.

Walked back to school and got him just before 3. He was playing with a big set of magnet blocks and showed me how they work. And he told me he has a camera in his stomach that does stop motion and can take billions of photos. He then took me into the atelier and wanted me to build something with him using the shape blocks, which were on the table. We built a symmetrical shape together, then he went and got a mirror so he could make it double again. He showed me a paper packet thing in the atelier and told me it was for the reading class, but couldn’t tell me more. He said they hadn’t had reading class yet, and they hadn’t talked about it. They should be starting those up soon though.

We went out on the bench and he ate. I had brought superglue and I superglued his timer, which had broken on Friday. He says he doesn’t need it for rest time now, so we’ll probably take it home tomorrow when it is dry. He told me knock knock jokes he had made up, like “Knock knock. Who’s there. Bird. Bird who? Peck, peck, peck, peck!” He had me break apart one of the round corn crackers into 12 pieces and we did math with that. And he told me about yoga. He said they did balloon breathing, sun salutation, and what sounded like sunama. He sang a sun salutation song he had learned in class.

We headed home before 4 after I told him we had Ikea furniture to put together. At home he used the broken strap around the big chair box to drag it over to the rug, where we were placing all the boxes. I took the box with the shelves upstairs, but were opening the chair part downstairs. I could only find the big scissors, and let him use them to cut the other strap around the big box. I was then putting the scissors away and just going to pull off the tape when he came over to me and sort of whispered “Hey dada, I liked that one time you let me use the really big scissors.” So with my help and supervision I let him cut all the tape on the big box to get it open.

But then he wanted to have fun just cutting the plastic. When I said no to that he got frustrated and said I wasn’t letting him come up with ideas. I argued that we had a lot to do and that would slow us down. he switched his argument and now said he wanted to come up with ideas to help out. And he did. He used the screwdriver set to figure out he could poke holes in the plastic on the door units for the bookshelves to get them open. He managed to fully open both boxes and was very excited that he figured it out on his own.

We then headed upstairs and he helped put together the shelves unit. Like our other units, except white this time, with two wood-pattered doors to put on two of the square shelves. He told me he was Izzy, my helper (after Izzy in the Hilo books). He also talked at one point about how his teachers wouldn’t believe that he helped put furniture together.

We finished the shelves and one of the doors, although there wasn’t much he could do to help with the doors. So we switched to the chair, putting the metal pieces on the bottom. He was playing with the metal pieces, pretending they were shooting things out of them, etc. but then he was hitting things with them and I was asking him to stop (in particular Carly’s Q, 14, etc. paintings). Carly came in and when he kept hitting things with it she took it away. He had a meltdown after this.

After a couple minutes he was calling for me to come into the bedroom. I think he was concerned I was going to finish it all on my own, so I told him we could pause and finish tomorrow. That seemed to help and he calmed down and apologized for screaming in her ear.

He and I went downstairs and Carly took a shower. He watched The Magic School Bus episode about different kinds of animal eyes. I got soup ready for him. It was a little after 7 when he was done with the episode and then ate his soup. Carly asked him about his day and if he had fun. He answered,”Affirmative” (which is from a robot in a Julius Jr. episode) but wouldn’t tell her much more. A minute later Carly asked him, “Did you grow today?” He replied, “Uh-huh…Why do you ask me that so much?”

It was time for his bath but he wanted me to play the preschool game with him. I told him he could it with Carly while he took his bath and pointed out he hadn’t played much with her today. So he asked Carly to play with him tomorrow when it wasn’t bath time. Earlier she said he had told Carly to say “I love you” less: “You can say it sometimes, but not quite so much.”

Still on the couch, he told us “I’m the worst person in my class.” And he again related the story of knocking over an iPad. He had also told Carly about this before falling asleep on Friday. We talked to him about it and a couple minutes later it seemed he had changed his mind: “I’m the teacher’s favorite student in the class.”

Carly took him up to his bath and brushed his teeth. They came downstairs for a minute to get chocolate milk, then I took him up to bed after he said goodnight to Carly. He talked about “The subatomic sea. That’s the saltiest sea…” In Skybrary we read a book called Perimeter, Area, and Volume: A Monster Book of Dimensions and Izzy Impala’s Imaginary Illnesses. I turned on the lamp and we played a few minutes of the preschool game. He used the bathroom and I had lights off at 8:50. I think 8:30 is the goal going forward. He started talking about being the worst student again and wanted me to call his teachers right then to ask them if he was the worst student. When I talked to Carly afterwards it turned out he had said the same to her on Friday. So I will try to talk to one of his teachers tomorrow—he’s definitely worry about this. He then asked me “Can you sing me something?” I sang Thin Blue Flame, Cohen’s Hallelujah, and a couple other things and he was asleep by 9:20.

Using the mirror to make symmetry: