Thursday, November 8: running errands and a tough day for August

Think he was cold last night, as he kept getting closer to me, sharing a pillow. Eventually, I gave it up and switched sides. He sat up around 6 but lay back down and kept sleeping. He then came down at 6:35 and cuddled with Carly on the couch. He then wanted to play with PowerPoint on her computer. She headed to school and he watched Smurfs. As we got ready to go he sang “Do you start the letter from the top?” to the tune of If You’re Happy and You Know It. He said it was from literacy group. He also asked, “Do you know this solar system is tiny? Tinier than a quark! And we’re tinier than it!”

We walked to school and got to class a little earlier than usual. Marion was busy though (talking to another parent) and we tried to talk to Lydia once but then she walked away and was in a crowd by Marion. August was finding it hard to say the words, so I talked to Andrea and suggested he might be able to try later. I said goodbye and left and started to walk up the stairs. August came out and called, “Dada! You forgot something… To sit on the bench for a couple minutes. Or are you trying something new?”

I waited by the bench, then headed up to the library until the PTA meeting started. My main goal in attending was to start to make connections and figure out if there is a sort of community of parents of gifted students, as there doesn’t seem to be anyone on the admin/staff side that is focused on gifted students/education. To do that meant sitting through reports on the Green Committee, what’s going on in middle school, the elementary social/emotional curriculum, and upcoming event planning and budget issues. All of it was fine, except the last thing, which involved way too much discussion of which snacks to provide at high school sporting events. I did talk to one parent, Sarah Grens, who was a history teacher back in Texas, but homeschooled her three kids until they moved to Israel. She said that the first grade here at WBAIS where parents seemed welcomed into the classrooms was 5th grade, which isn’t exactly what we hoped.

Carly had driven in the morning, and after the meeting I drove home. My parents got ready and we then drove up to Ilanot and had a lovely walk around, looking at all the species of trees. We also saw a kestrel, then saw it fly down and catch something in the grass—a mouse or something. We were planning on going to the Netanya waterfront and eating there along the boardwalk, but decided we were running too late as we drove into town. So we went straight to the Poleg Mall. No luck finding wrapping paper, then we got a slice of pizza each and ate in the food court. We went looking for a pan for bread baking and found a possibility at Fox Home, but was undecided. We went down to get grapes (Carly had asked us to get grapes for the event tomorrow) but they didn’t have any in the grocery store there.

We had just enough time, and we stopped at Tiv Taam on the way back. I ran in and spent a couple minutes trying to find grapes that weren’t squishy. Got four containers and paid a crazy amount for them. Apparently it is the end of the season and they are expensive.

We drove up to school and went down to get August. I heard screaming as I walked up, and it was August. He and Simona had been picking string or something up off the floor and something happened. We talked to Andrea about his day. It had been a rough one. No hair pulling, but he had been getting upset with the teachers and yelling at Marion, Andrea, and Mini. I was able to have him talk to and apologize to all three of them before we left. In talking to him, before we did the apologizing, I had asked where this idea that he could make the rules came from, and he said it was just an idea that he had had. I asked him how well this idea was working out and he acknowledged it wasn’t going so well. I suggested we come up with a new idea.

He went outside with my parents and I talked to Andrea for another minute. When I came out he was playing with Dad over on the ship thing. August said there was an electricity show. Then they moved over to the car thing and first there was an underground tour, then the were making wood. “I discovered a word of the day: warped…from Grampa.”

We headed up to leave, but we ran into Sophia and Nicholas by the exit. Sophia asked if he wanted to play hide and seek and he said yes. He counted first. Sophia then asked me to play and we spent about 20 minutes playing.

Carly had a lot of setup to do for tomorrow’s event, so we left before she was done. We drove home and he helped me clean off all of the lids he’s collected so he could take them to school tomorrow. He then used the lid to a paint can to water all of the smaller plants. Inside, he played with Legos with Gramma and Grampa and made a house. At one point Dad was laying on the floor and August cuddled next to him. Carly got home. For dinner I made him more shrimp and he had rice and broccoli and shrimp with teriyaki sauce. He bit his tongue and it bled and he had a big meltdown when we wouldn’t get him a lollipop after he ordered us to. Carly took him upstairs and handled that one. He came back down and ate the rest of his dinner. I was very thankful for that, as I was afraid he wouldn’t eat shrimp anymore. He then ate seconds. Still hungry, he ate toast with peanut butter.

He went up with me and helped me move the bed back into the small room so we could all be together again. I then gave him a bath on the stool. For story dice he wanted me to use the same dice as yesterday: “We’ll use that again but make different details. But we’ll use the same dice.” “The deeper it gets the sillier it gets.” So I told the same story, but this time it was from the point of view of one of the pirates that attacked. We then finished reading Giants Beware!

We then discussed school, and we discussed the idea of being a rules analyst, and not the maker of the rules. He liked the idea, and said he was already analyzing the rules. We then played a preschool game, then Carly came in to go to sleep with him. I left them at 8:30.

Even if it would song: