I twice heard him laughing in his sleep. He woke up at 6:50, right after Carly had left for work. After he woke up, he wanted me to do the storytelling dice right away, but I had to tell him to watch Aardvark and the Ant first as I was still finishing up his lunch and snack. We then did one story with the dice before we headed out at 7:40. Along the way we found a very random scarecrow toy/decoration lying on the side of the road that we had to take a photo of. At the classroom, he didn’t want me to leave again, like yesterday, and wanted me to go sit on the bench. I told him I’d wait for a couple minutes to make sure he was okay, and he went in. So not as bad as yesterday.
I went home and finished the book cover and cleaned out the fridge. I went back to the school at 2 for the Halloween party. I met him at the top of the stairs. He was looking around for me, dressed in his costume, and when he found me he said, “I thought you’d be wearing a costume.” We took some photos of him in his costume, then the elementary school did their Halloween costume parade around the center area. Carly was along the middle of the route with her students, a couple who were yelling “Oxygen! We love you!”
When it was done, we headed down to the preschool. We figured out where I was supposed to help, in the covered area by his classroom. He went over to the table with the play dough and played there and I ran the pin the nose on the pumpkin game for a few minutes. Then the crowds disappeared in our area—everyone was over getting food and doing the other activities. So August and I went and got food. That was his focus for the rest of the time, as we went back a couple times to get more. He really liked browsing the table and finding things to eat. He started with the kettle corn and a piece of chocolate cake and snack mix. Went back and got some yogurt cake and more snack mix and some apple banana juice. I got some peach juice, which he shared, then a different kind of apple banana drink. When there was an announcement about kindergarten heading back to class he complained, “But that was so short.”
We did the last of our eating and drinking in his classroom at a table, then Carly came by to check in. She went to pack up, and he and I headed to the library. Liz and Eve were closing up, but Liz let us drop off the Hilda book we had (Troll) and we quickly ran back and grabbed the two books they had that we hadn’t red yet (Stone Forest and something else). She wrote them down, as she’d already shut down the computer. She told me that they had watched an episode of the Hilda cartoon after I told them it existed and that it is good. August reminded us that the reason he hadn’t wanted to watch it was that the intro was too scary.
Outside the library I talked to Eve about her favorite books—ideas for books to read with August, maybe—then he and I went to Carly’s classroom.
During the day, Carly had seen him outside the windows behind her class. They were collecting things, and he told me it was things for the big color wheel they have in the classroom. They had had a tea party in the morning, but no music class. Also, Amelia had seen me in the classroom and asked if I was the one that wrote the comics for his lunch. He had asked her to read it to him today.
He ran down the ramp to Carly’s classroom, then inside he did a song and dance he said was from a past music class. It involved putting his hands on his shoulders and sticking out his tongue and dancing around. Carly let him draw on the smartboard, then she did a math class with him. She was using a funny voice and he was laughing a lot.
We headed home. Here, he played on iPad. Carly swept up outside and I did the dishes. I sat next to him and typed as he played Chesster and traced words. I asked him about Lydia and he said he had just said one thing to her today: “Hi.” And she had said “Hi” to him. I congratulated him and he seemed quite happy with himself. He drew a plastic molecule on paper and I discussed a ‘compound’ with him and that became the word of the day.
He basically ate his lunch for dinner: almond butter and jam sandwich and apple slices. It was dark, and he had the idea of going outside with the flashlights and a bowl of Cheerios. We went out for a few minutes and it was a secret that Carly wasn’t supposed to know about. But then he invited her out too. She came out and after awhile I went and got sweatshirts for me and August. I was making ‘winter is coming’ sorts of jokes. August said, “What to elves learn at school? The elf-abet!” He remembered that from a list of jokes I had looked up at some point. I think when we were waiting for Carly in the parking lot of the school one day. I went inside, and when he wanted hot chocolate I made it for him—the savoring kind. He had that at the table and I came back out. He told me I bad manners for going inside. And he told us, “Ms. Marion and Ms. Andrea hate to talk to me.” We talked to him about class size ratios.
Inside, Carly gave him a bath. He played in the sink and made a big mess. He went and got his own pajamas and socks. They then played with the kaleidoscope cards and played the tea game.
I switched with Carly and he and I read Hilda and the Stone Forest. At 8:20 he went down and had a really nice good night cuddle with Carly. Upstairs, we did a storytelling dice story: “The Day I Saved the Princess from the Monkeys”. It was time for lights off, but he remembered wanted to look at the book about prehistoric animals. so I went and got that, and we looked at the earliest things. Trilobites were what I was trying to remember yesterday. We talked about amino acids, etc. and formation of life. He had found a drug chemical that is the missing link using his time machine. He was talking about time, and father we turned off the lights I told him about how time runs differently at every point in the universe—everything I’d learned from the first few chapters of the Carlo Rovelli book, The Order of Time, I had started listening to today.
I thought he was asleep after this little lecture, but he rolled over and told me, “I don’t think my teachers like me anymore.” Basically, it sounds like he misses the choice times and he’s not able to roam around like he did at the beginning of the year. I think they are also more intentional of trying to guide him to sit next to certain other kids, etc. He sees all of this as them telling him what to do, and he doesn’t get to make choice. We talked about this, then I asked him if he wanted me to sing.
I sang “The Other Day, I Met a Bear”. He the requested the alligator song I made up in Korea. I sang that twice, and he fell asleep just after 9:20.
The Halloween costume parade:
Playing with play dough at the party:
Song and dance from music class:
Coloring on the smart board:
Laughing at Mama’s math lesson:
His crazy classroom time lapse:
It’s fresh and Rosy fingered like the dawn:
Oxygen molecule
Parade
Playdough at the preschool party
Food and more food
Looking at Amelie
Their color wheel
A photo of me
Out in the wind
