Wednesday, November 7: some shopping and a rough day for August

He woke up at 6:50. I asked him about sleeping with his head on the floor. When I got up he had his head off the bed. He thought about and said, “Yep.” He then told us,”When I woke up, it was hard to stand up and I just smashed down again.” Carly headed to work and he watched Llama Llama. When it came time to get ready to go, however, he got upset and said he could also watch something on YouTube. After a bit of a meltdown he calmed down, and we practiced saying “Dada, I’m not ready to get ready for school. Can we do something first?” I agreed to read something, but then he decided he just wanted a preschool game. We did that, then Dad walked to school with us and dropping him off went just fine. We waited a minute, as August instructed, then left and drove the car home.

We took some time at home, then my parents and I drove down to the complex with Toys R Us. They were doing their Christmas shopping for August and got him a heavy set of the magnetic shape blocks, a six-pack of play dough, and a bag of the magic sand stuff (that he had played with at Toys R Us in Korea). We stopped in the Super Pharm and looked in a few places for kitchen stuff. Saw August’s friend Sophia with her mom. The Druze sandwich stand was closed, so we decided on McDonald’s for lunch. We then drove up to the art store by the big Tiv Taam. They got him a kit of bubble science there.

We went home for awhile, then Dad and I returned to school to check in with August before his dance class. I had Dad walk in first. August didn’t seem phased. He was playing with these natural blocks and wood pieces and Dad helped out. Candy had insects she was putting on them. Andrea said he’d been playing with a couple of other students, making things there and using the green screen to make it look like they were on water or sand.

He ate half of a Balance Bar and refilled his water, then went up to dance class. Andrea had asked if I had a minute to talk. Turns out he had been quick to anger today. One time he wanted to make an announcement to everyone on the playground. When Marion said they wouldn’t all quiet down for him he got upset with her and called her the worst teacher ever, or something like that. And at meeting time there was a piece of cardboard that someone was playing with that is supposed to be put away somewhere and he got upset that the rules weren’t being followed. The worst was when he was helping to hang up little books that they had made. He was doing it with Lydia and they got into an argument over something. That part wasn’t clear to me. But it quickly turned to him screaming at her and then pulling her hair.

The good news is that each time he calmed down quickly. After the last one he was then building something and asked Marion to take a photo of it.

At home Carly and I talked to him about it. He said, “Ms. Myriam and Ms. Vicki and Ms. Andrea and Ms. Amelia are the worst teacher.” When Carly asked “What’s a rule you would like?” he responded, “I’ll have to think about it.”

She was then trying to read to him but he wouldn’t let her, saying he prefers me. He finally tried the lasagna and liked it. Really liked it. He ate a slice of carrot, then I got him more lasagna. And after that he had some shrimp. He then sang the hokey pokey and said it was the first time he’d heard that song, in dance class. Dad asked if that was the stomping we heard, and August said no, that was from the teddy bear song. He wanted more shrimp, and ate some with teriyaki sauce.

We then sat down to read and we started Giants Beware! from the beginning. Dad was talking about something and used the word ‘occupied’ (as in busy with something) and that became the word of the day. We read some more of Giants Beware! Then he made a Lego car witb gramma. He got sad about his car breaking, and I helped put it back together. We started building what would become a plane that would study oceans.

Then, suddenly, he wanted to go to his bath: “Dada, you keep adding stuff like youre doing. I’m going to go to my bath. Mama, come.” He spent a long time playing with the spray bottle, and made a mixture of water and cream and lotion that he would spray on our dry skin. When he came back down he looked at our plane and said, “That’s so cool!” I had only added one part. He used my phone to take a photo of it, then took other photos around the house. He was then singing a song from school: “Everybody sit right on the floor, not the ceiling, not on the door…” Tried to get him playing with Gramma again, and finally he was. He called “Slowcoach!” So I called “Wanda!” back. We called names from Wanda and the Alien back and forth and he was being pretty silly.

He made a ramp out of Legos, then figured out how to make it taller and longer. We took slo-mo videos of him rolling things down it. He went to the bathroom, then sang more of the pirate song. Back at the Legos, Grampa helped him find pieces. This is when he told us that his plane had sensors for studying the ocean. 20 of them.

He said good night and I took him upstairs. We had talked earlier about being to watch a YouTube video this evening, and he even mentioned it soon before we headed upstairs, but then he forgot about it. We went into the office to do a Storytelling Dice story. He got in the green chair and lay across the arms of it, his back suspended above the seat: “Plank! Yoga poses.” We did a story, “The Bee Expedition”, then he said goodnight to Carly and we spent one more night sleeping in the office.

We had a long talk about school. We practiced saying “Sorry for pulling your hair” and “Sorry for saying mean things” to Lydia and Marion.

In discussing the incidents, a theme emerged, where they were all about (perceived) unfairness and rule breaking. When he wanted to make an announcement on the playground proved to be the most interesting and he got the most emotional over it. Basically, he is bothered by (and will explain how he has been bothered by it since PKB) the chasing game that Juhyeok, Leonard, and Yaya play. His perception is that they get away with making gun noises, chase people who aren’t playing, and keep people from using the swings. He wanted to announce a rule that said if people broke the rules on the playground then they would get fun stuff taken away—then proceeded to list every possible fun thing that happens in preschool.

And with Lydia he said she wouldn’t stop taking his tape (or whatever it was) down. He said he was “confused” by Lydia because no matter what he does (say something, scream, pull hair) she keeps doing what he doesn’t want her to do. He then specifically talked about the hat stealing incident and another time when she chased or hit him with a stick. He said, “They all clump together into one bigger problem.”

He was asleep at 9:25.

Humming on the way to school: