He was up at 6:35. He went downstairs and ran to Carly and they cuddled on the couch. When she had to get ready he started watching Pink Panther. I finished his snack and lunch (Carly had made him quesadilla) and oatmeal and he ate that at the table.
All went smooth in the morning, and we were walking at 7:37. Got there after the bus kids, but he happily went and started playing. I may have blown it though, as we forgot about the hat. I was about to walk away when he came out with Marion. He was upset and hitting her because she took away his hat. It took five or six minutes for him to calm down. Eventually though, he picked a flower for her and took it in and apologized to her and gave her the flower and I left.
I went home and worked, then returned to school to meet with Vicky at 2pm. We’d been meaning to meet to discuss literacy group. No issues to address, but just out of curiosity on my part to know what they’re doing. She showed me the tile rhyming game they’ve been working on. She said he’s improving at it, but the difficult part for him seems to be looking at the pictures, converting that to a word, and then thinking of the sound. If you just say a word for him, like ‘dog’, he can easily tell you a rhyming word. He’s making progress on his pencil holding and writing. And she showed me all of his art/writing in his journal. His art is becoming more figurative with practice; I’m not entirely convinced this is a good thing, as the way they go about it seems to tell him that abstract isn’t as good and figurative art. And she talked about the stories he’s been writing. Like changing Jack and the Bean Stalk and something else. They did their own stories most recently. He drew a picture of him walking away from his house. When they went back the next day to expand them, he didn’t want to add to it, although he watched everyone else and commented on discussions about their stories. Eventually he told her that it was him walking down the street with his monster, but he said he didn’t know how to draw that, so she helped him.
A few minutes before 3 I walked out, as the yoga class was getting out. He spotted me. I was surprised, as he wasn’t supposed to be in yoga today. He told me, “I had a rough end of the day.” But it turned out that it had actually been pretty good. No issues with other students today, and the one other red sticker was for blwing a raspberry at Andrea. And he was in yoga because he had left Playball and come inside, then Ms. Rina suggested he go in yoga class with her. He asked me, “Did you know yoga came from one country?”
He said there were two times that he felt the “bubbly” feeling today and went to a calm space. He was very proud of this, and a bit later asked me, “Do you like how I felt the spinning feeling and I walked away and found a calm space?”
Outside he looked at the flowers on the trellis and commented on how the vines had grown over the whole thing. He had some snack, and wandered over on the other side of the elementary school, where Bar saw him and ran over and gave him a big hug. He was very excited by it. He wandered back and into the classroom, and Marion used him to test how high she should hang the puppet theater that they were making. August had told me he had made a second hand puppet, with wings or feathers, I think, but had then cut it up. Andrea told me he had been animating it, so we might still get to see it at some point.
We got going, and as we got upstairs we saw Ms. Rina. She told me how he had been reluctant to go into yoga today until she told him about how it came from India, etc.
As we went out he stood in front of the security guard and sang a very funny song that went something like, “Snoggle snoggle door door.” And had some dancing with it. As we walked out he asked me, “What’s the difference between a gate and a door?” We left at 3:50. Something reminded him of jello, and specifically, “The kind of jello we had all the time in Korea.” Not entirely sure what he is talking about. He told me it wasn’t in plastic cups.
As we walked he talked about “If I was a bird…” and having nests up at the top of a tree or on a skyscraper. We saw a lift truck changing a street lamp, and he said he had a lift truck that he used to study bird nests. We were home around 4:45.
Since he had technically gotten two red stickers I couldn’t take him to Kravitz to pick something out, but I told him that otherwise he had had a very positive day, so he could have the rest of his ring pop and we could watch an episode of Hilda.
Carly got home, and we read some Hilo, finishing book 5 again today and starting again from the beginning of the series. He had nutty noodles and I kept reading to him at the table. He got the caterpillar new food, choosing part of the lavender plant. When I suggested it might be too smelly for the caterpillar, he was tough on it: “Huh. I don’t care. That’s the food it gets today.” When we said he was being tough, he replied, “Pretty hard juice, baby.”
We went upstairs and wrestled on the bed. He went to the bathroom, and when he washed his hands I told him he had plenty of soap. He asked, “what’s plenty?” So ‘plenty’ was a word of the day. He played with and talked about his ‘chemicals’.
We went downstairs and made popcorn. We started to read Hilo, and he said that watching something was the best thing ever. I said something like “Watching something is better than dada reading to you?” He immediately said, “I take it back!”
We then talked about today at school, and he asked to see the chart. We reviewed it, and made a couple of revisions. We went upstairs and he had a little more of the lollipop while I washed his hair. Went smooth again, but he didn’t like when I tried to dry his hair with the towel. In the bedroom, as we used the blow drier, he did a good job of explaining how he doesn’t like the squishing feeling on the wet hair.
We talked about what I’d learned about literacy group, and he asked about ‘figurative art’, so another word of the day. I went downstairs to get something and told him to put on his pajamas while I was gone. I started talking to Carly, and after a couple minutes August started yelling for me, then came down. He had had a grin on his face when I left, and we now knew why. He was singing a “Jangle of the keys” song, and came down with his pajama pants on his head, and the shirt tied around his waist. He was hilarious.
When he calmed down from that, he said, “I like Aviva.” And said, “We’re going to let it out in th tree, so it can come down and see us…a pet caterpillar until we move…”
Up on the bed he told me all about a robot bug teacher that he made for himself out of parts from a toaster and other things. She is small and he can carry her around. He had used gold that he found to pay for tools, like wrenches. The robot bug teacher makes him do what she says, but sometimes he makes her do what he says. He said, “My robot teacher I made said I’m big enough to use the phone.”
Upstairs, I read him part of Freckle Juice. We started from the beginning, but then skipped forward so that we could read the part where he makes the juice and gets sick. Carly came in. He told her, “I think I need to love you less because I love you so much I think I’m gonna die.” I left them at 8:25.
Walking the little hill:
Caterpillar feet:
Knife experiment:
