Sunday, November 4: Ra’anana

He sort of threw up a couple times during the night, the second around 5, but nothing really came up. It happened again around 6:30. Carly was already up, so I lay down next to him and he lay there for another 15 minutes before we made our way downstairs. He was slow, sliding down the stairs on his bottom. He lay on the couch for a minute, then went and got his shoes and went outside with Carly.

He came back in and watched Wanda and the Alien on the couch next to me as I typed. At 7:30 he threw up for real, right as we were talking about if he felt like eating. We read seven chapters of Hilo 3 and he ate two slices of peanut butter toast. He lay on the floor for while, then cuddled with Carly, then was silent on the floor again. Really thought he’d take a nap on the floor again. He had us play a science class game and was making a machine to find lost things. It took 3000 Saturn years to make it.

He and Carly then did a science experiment where they picked flowers, then put them in water with different colors of food coloring in it. He got some Smarties and Carly made him a squirrel nest and we were hiding each Smartie for him and he would come out of the nest and try to find it. We’d give him the beeping hints for how close he was. Carly was making pozole. August said “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit. You do what you do when you don’t have a fit.” He said part of it was from Andrea and he made the rest up.

Carly headed to the grocery store and Ace to get some groceries and supplies for her Get to Know You Day. August and I made banana and carrot bread. One loaf of banana, and one that was three carrots and one banana. That was a sort of compromise/experiment that August and I came up with after he didn’t want to make a second loaf. My parents went for a short walk over to the west, down the little path and past the bomb shelter. August helped me from time to time, and would go back to lying on the couch, resting.

My parents got back, then Carly. August was using the wand he made out of straws yesterday and casting spells: “Abracadabra, make mama my helper.” Eve, Dada, the door…my helper. Then he was casting spells on Gramma: “make your eyes fall out…make Gramma broken…make Gramma fixed.” He asked to use the “birthday camera”, my SLR, so I went up and got that and let him take photos. He asked for the fisheye lens and took more photos. He was then in his squirrel nest, before playing on the kitchen floor and taping up Gramma. At one point he asked Carly, “Do you have an extendo-toe?” He was making a long toe for himself, I think, and Gramma said they could make it more stiff for him. He asked what that meant and declared ‘stiff’ the word of the day. He had fun taping up Gramma on the kitchen floor, and taped a toilet paper tube to her, which he was then looking through.

It was getting windy outside, and August went out the kitchen door by himself and sat at the table. At first he didn’t want anyone following him, then he invited Carly out and asked, “Fresh and rosy fingered like the dawn. Right, mama?” He watered the plants. Mom had been sitting on the floor, and I asked August if it was okay for her to take the tape off. He said it was okay, as long as I had gotten a photo.

The banana and carrot breads were done and we had a little. They turned out well. We got ready and left at 2:25. In the car, August remembered he’d wanted to take his tape dispenser and I ran back in the house to get it. He spent most of the time in the car taping himself in his vest. Then, as we got to the art store off of 4, where Carly was buying a canvas for the art project at Friday’s Get to Know You Day, August fell asleep. It was 2:50 and I stayed in the car with him while the rest of them went in. She came out with one big canvas but realized we couldn’t fit it in the car. They went back and got the next smaller size and it fit perfectly.

August slept for about a half hour and we woke him up as we got to Wiz Kids. Carly carried him in, looked around for a minute, then went out and cuddled with him on a bench while we finished up. I got five Paddington books that were 40% off and two more sets of the Story Dice. Mom wanted to get him something for a Christmas present and I pointed out the hanging rods thing (kind of looks like a Calder mobile) and she bought that. Turned out to also be 40% off.

August was a bit hesitant about the whole staying with Gramma and Grampa thing, but that changed when I said they were going to take him for ice cream. We drove over to the street by her house with the grocery store, parked, then walked in a circle around the block so my parents could see the office, the playground, and then the grocery store. We left them at the grocery store where he was choosing ice cream. Ended up with one of those small dishes of some caramel chocolate kind. They bought that and took it to the park, ate it with the little spoon in it (which he didn’t like the idea of, but then it was just fine once he was eating the ice cream), and played in the park. He played a little, but it sounded like they mainly just talked.

After about 50 minutes he thought we should be there, and they got on the bike and walked past the office. He recognized where the office was, saying “I see it in my mind.” Pretty good, as it was dark by then. They kept walking a bit south, then headed back north to the park. He was relaxed the whole time. We caught up with them as they walked back in the park, Dad pushing him.

Meanwhile, the meeting with Dr. Aviv went well. In a nutshell, yes, gifted, 99th percentile. But she was also recommending him for occupational therapy to work on his writing, as he holds his pencil awkwardly. That’s something we haven’t pushed as he has resisted holding his markers that way, and we figured they’d teach in school. Not too worried about this one, as I think he’ll catch on once he’s taught it. His dexterity with tape and scissors is just fine. And she also recommended speech therapy for a few sounds (‘l’ and ‘r’, for example). There were also a few areas, not covered by the IQ test overall, where he wasn’t as strong, such as realistic puzzles. But he did quite well with abstract ones. This one is interesting, as he hasn’t been too interested in puzzles, but when he has, he didn’t seem to pick up on the visual clues/edge pieces/etc. like I’m used to him picking up on other skills. In math, she gave him 1st grade assessments and normed him that and he did really well. She talked about how he had internalized the number line and could subtract beyond 10, and also how he was able to talk through and solve types of problems he’s never seen before (like adding 4 numbers).

She related a couple of stories of him from her observations. He was doing some activity and said, “I’ve made a marvelous discovery.” Which she loved, but she also related as an example of how his advanced language skills can cause problems relating to his peers, who didn’t understand what the heck he was talking about. And when they were painting on a big long piece of paper the kid next to him put the blue brush into the yellow. August said, “Oh, blue and yellow make green!…But now we don’t have yellow. Should I get more?” Here she was pointing out both his language and how, while he doesn’t relate really well to his peers, necessarily, he responds well—he just as easily could have gotten upset that the other kid had ruined his paint.

She also said that when she had met with his teachers she had told them they needed to do more direct instructions with him for the social skills. For example, she saw one interaction between him and one of the teachers where she asked him what he wanted to do next, and he said play with the blocks. He did indeed go over to play with the blocks, and the teacher went somewhere else. He found two other kids playing with the blocks, stood there watching for a few minutes, but didn’t know how to join them, and then eventually walked off and started wandering around the classroom, which is what the teachers don’t want him to do. Instead, they need to go with him and facilitate the interaction and have him ask if he can join in. She also suggested they buddy him up with a leader (politely bossy kid). I think they may have started doing this, partnering him with Eve.

Oh, she also suggested an after school social skills group at the preschool. And she said she had talked to Vicky, who was open to the idea. I know the social skills are an area to work on, but I’m really not all that worried, as he seems to be making a lot of progress since 4 weeks ago. He’s talked about playing with Reia, Selma, Candy, Sophia, and Simona. And I know he’s interacted with Eve a lot.

That said, there were a couple things I feel she misread: she talked about how she saw him stare at his lunchbox during lunch, open it and get stuff out, put it back, open it again, put it back, etc. She thought he really wanted to eat, but was deciding to save it to eat with me. But my guess is that one time he was getting out the comic from me and looking at it, and another time he got out the bar and ate it. I don’t think it was quite the wrestling with his stomach that she thought it was.

We drove home. I read him two chapter of Hilo 2, as 3 wasn’t on his iPad. We were home at 6:10. He wanted to play with the story dice right away, but I needed dinner first. He finally relented and we got dinner together. He asked, “Did you know garbanzo beans bounce in your tummy?” The pozola for dinner was really good. He and I got into a debate about how much a ton is, after he was asking about how your body gets energy, stores calories, etc. and that turned into a discussion of weight. I reminded him a ton is 2000 pounds. He said, “No. A ton is 1000 pounds.” We’ve had this debate before and he claimed that Carly told him it was a thousand, so he’s sticking to it.

While she was up from the table he taped her spoon to her bowl. And he taped me to the table and my phone to me. Sometime earlier Mom had said something to him about being four and a half and he said, “actually a little more.”

I took him up to the bathroom and gave him his bath and washed his hair in the sink. Back downstairs, Dad started confusing me again by telling a cruise story and starting “On the ship…” I told him that my whole life when he’s started with “On the ship…” he was taking about the Navy.

Upstairs, he combined the story dice and chose two from each set for a story. I made up a story called “Signs point to…” We are starting to develop a world around the Nine Kingdoms, where science and magic hold different roles in the different kingdoms, and our different sets of stories (the apprentice, the adventurer) are set. Somewhere in the middle he asked, “Can a human make birth to a gorilla?” We discussed that, then finished our story.

I took him down to my parents and he said goodnight and got a Zinnie hug. He asked Carly why she irons her clothes, and he decide he wanted his clothes ironed: “But my clothes are bumpy. Please, mama?”

I went for a run around 8. He and Carly were both asleep when I got back. I took a shower and discussed the meeting with Dr. Aviv with my parents. As we did that we heard thunder. We got an excellent storm for the next hour or two. I went to bed and could see tons of flashes out the window, facing east. Our best thunderstorm since we’ve been here.

Casting spells: