He was up before 6:05. He watched Max and Ruby this morning. Carly made him oatmeal. She headed to work. He got upset though when it was time to turn it off. We did a timeout, but he recovered. We had a good walk to school, and walked in at the bell. He was wearing his flashing shoes, so I knew he’d want to show them off. So I talked to him in advance about not running in and yelling, then I held his hand as we went in. It went well, as they were standing up to start a song and dance. He did a quiet noise to announce his presence, then joined in with dancing to the morning song.
I left and rode my bike home. Sabeel work and also made progress on the website. And watched the Super Bowl in the background.
I rode back to school. I was a bit early, about 1:50, and was standing outside the classroom doing a little more Arabic when suddenly I heard a scream, then he came bursting out of the door and hugged me and said he loved me. He was followed by Leonard and Lydia and Ms. Andrea. She said he had heard her say it was almost library time, so he guessed I was outside and got excited when he saw me out the window.
I went in with them. He showed me how he was using a paintbrush to put glue on a piece of wood. His shoes were a hit, it seemed: Taya thought he had Reia’s shoes on (I think she has similar) and Lydia said he was a girl because of the shoes and long hair. Also, she called me by my first name several times. Leonard also gave me a few hugs (when they’d run out, he and August had hugged me, and August commented it was a Leonard, Dada, Zinnie hug). He also had me hold his feet and showed me how he could walk on his hands. August then wanted to do the same thing. Did that for a minute, then got back to helping clean up.
We headed to library time. I almost asked them to go in with us, as all of the craziness happens right at the beginning. But Ilana was out sick today with a bad cough, so Liz took over. Also, Simone’s mother was also there. So maybe just because of the change in personnel, the class acted very differently. Easily the best they’ve been since maybe the first couple weeks of school.
It was warm but very windy today, and for some reason it makes a loud whistling sound at the back of the library. Liz let them look out the windows to see the wind in the trees, and August and I thought we could see the Cloud Bridge from there. For the book she read Tikki Tikki Tembo, probably due to the Lunar New Year, and because Ilana has been doing classics. I pointed out I remembered it from kindergarten or first grade and Eve’s dad, who had also joined us, said that he’d been in a play based on it. The kids did well, and August sat on my lap.
For checkout time he got a book with a built-in clock called Tick Tock Dog. Then when it came time to check out he saw the box with batteries to be recycled. He wanted to take some home, but when Amanda said they weren’t for taking home, he started to act out, both towards her and towards me. I compromised, saying he could take some of the small watch batteries, but then as we were walking away he said really mean things about Amanda, and I took the batteries away and put them back.
We walked straight home. He talked about the issues today: Bibo and Millie had been pulling on him, so he said something mean to them, and he had said something mean to Ms. Marion. He didn’t provide much more detail to either, and I hadn’t talked to either of the teachers after school since we left after the library incident.
We read his library book, then he had a few Cheerios. Next, I reheated the mushroom pizza he hadn’t eaten for lunch. He had at least eaten his half of a banana for lunch. He ate the pizza, about half a slice, but that would pretty much be it for the rest of the day.
He used our pizza cutter on his pizza and was shocked that ours is bigger than the one at VIPizza. He kept asking, “Why do we have a BIG pizza cutter?” He asked if I was sent to the timeout corner a lot in school. When I said not really he concluded, “So you tried to be a good student? That’s why you’re a good dada?” He told me that he and Simona try to break each other’s Lego creations: “It’s kind of a mean game.” As we were sitting at the table, talking, we were listening to the 1979 album from The Human League, called Reproduction. He asked, “Why don’t we ever listen to this kind of music at school?” He wished they listened to more electronic music at school, too. He was now sitting in my lap and we played our head butting game. He then invented “En-bug-adorflug”, which he says is even bigger than enshmugadorflug and infinity.
We went upstairs to do the imagining game on the bed. Had a pillow fight with all the pillows and pretended to destroy the house. He then pretended to call our parents and tell on me.
Carly got home just before 5 and I went to watch the Rebuilding Alliance’s congressional briefing on Palestine. I’ve been exchanging emails with the director, and another woman, Angela, from Jahalin Solidarity, that I’ve worked with was also involved. I watched the first hour, then went downstairs and had the second half, when kids from Susiya and Al Khan al-Akbar testified, playing down there.
August wanted popcorn, but never had any as he didn’t eat more than a couple bites of his dinner of mac and cheese and broccoli. He got a string and had me tie it to his wrist, and he was my cat on a string. Carly went up to take a shower. He ate his couple bites, but that was it. We read two Skybrary books, Freda Stops a Bully and Frances Frog’s Forever Friend. ‘Frisky’ was the word of the day.
I took him upstairs for his bath. He made a couple mixtures: the first was with some seeds from a bag he found in the freezer (someone had given them to us last year and we don’t know what they are. They were in the freezer, we think, because Carly didn’t like the smell of them.), putting them in a small tube with water. The second was his lollipop from yesterday in water, and he liked the lollipop-infused water and kept drinking it.
The sink had mostly filled up as I ran the water to warm it up. August then dipped his hair forward and started washing it himself. A miracle! He then didn’t complain at all as I washed the rest. And as we blow dried his hair, I had to brush it to get out the bits of glue that were still in it from STEM class yesterday. He handled that without a problem.
On the bed he jumped around and had me take videos. He was a little disappointed when he saw them and he wasn’t as blurry as he wanted to be. Brushed his teeth and said good night and I left them at 8:20.
Tying up the plant:
Pillow fight destroying the house:
Phone call to my parents:
Jumping 1:
Jumping 2:
Jumping 3:
