Oh my, quite a night. August seemed to sleep fine, but I didn’t. He kept turning sideways and kicking me in the head. Three times. Another time he hit me in the head. I remember reflexively hitting his arm off my head. He slept on. Either he put his hand back on my head, or did that later and just kept it there. He then woke up a little after 6:30, I think when Carly was about to go wake him up.
They came down and cuddled. He was in no hurry to watch or eat anything. He told Carly not to go to work. She eventually got going and he sat there for another minute or two, then eventually got up to eat his oatmeal. After awhile he asked to watch something and he chose a Hilda episode we’ve already seen, about the lost village of elves.
We were walking right at 7:30. It was supposed to lightly rain today, but there had been a big downpour about 6:15. Carly had braved it and walked. It looked decent enough so we walked as well. Went fine for us as well.
We were the first ones in the classroom. Andrea greeted us. I put his stuff away and told him I was going to leave. Andrea went and talked to him. She had a list of what was happening today and talked to him about checking them off as they went through the day. Don’t know if she came up with this on her own, or if Vicky had forwarded Deborah’s report to them, in which she suggested visuals for showing him the schedule and teaching the transitions. I was happy to see that in the report, as it is something we’ve been missing and asking for all year. The visual schedule really helped in PKB. But now he asked her, “I don’t really need that, so why did you come up with that?” I didn’t hear a full answer, but hopefully she was eventually directly with him, and talked about how he was having troubles at transitions, and they need to figure out how he can do them better.
I was able to leave the classroom before 8. I went home and worked, then came back to pick him up. I found him out on the bench with Marion. He had had trouble in mindfulness, and ended up downstairs with Andrea and Marion. He was sort of stewing for awhile, it sounds like, then was able to have fun with them and was happily talking to Marion about things while sitting on the bench. It had been a rough day overall, but he was calming down quickly each time. So that was the positive.
While he went to STEM class, I went and talked to Vicky, I suggested he shouldn’t be going to school right now, and we decided on half days, with me picking him up at noon. In STEM class I think they read Iggy Peck Architect (Andrea also mentioned, later, something about a book about someone building things out of pancakes) and were then making things out of sliced apples. August didn’t want his sliced, and instead made a creature of some sort. He later told me it was in the middle of being abstract, as you could see legs and other features. At the end of class August was then tying strings onto the shelves and chairs again, making a spider web like last week.
We then walked home. At home, August got another apple and did another apple sculpture. He then wanted to catch crane flys so we went for a walk. Got as far as crossing the street. First found a daddy long legs and caught that, then let it go and we watched it run. Then a crane fly. We went back to the house and Carly got home.
They went out and picked the first full-sized broccoli, growing up in the window planters. August bit right into it and started explaining how it tasted different “more spicy.” He ate quite a bit and gave each of us some to taste. They then came in and cooked it and she made him a pancake for dinner. He spent a long time in the bathroom, which meant a lot of talking to us. He now tells us, mainly Carly, “You’re the second best thing.” Sometimes I’m tied for second, other times I’m just third. He’s the first best thing, apparently.
He and I read Treasure Island. ‘Rations’ and ‘peckish’ were words of the day. A bit of a rough spot as he had a small timeout for touching Carly when she didn’t want to be touched, then downstairs I was talking about his day with him and he reached out and ripped the paper we were looking at.
Carly took him up for a bath, then they read Captain Underpants. I came up and he brushed his own teeth again with the fluoride toothpaste. As I put him to sleep we did a lizard visualization, then had a good discussion about growth mindset. As he was falling asleep, he said he had one more thing to tell me. He said he didn’t need the Lunch Robot notes in his lunch any more as he eats his lunch now and he hasn’t been reading them. He was afraid that I would think that he was saying he hated the notes. I assured him I didn’t, and that I really liked how he was able to explain that to me. He was asleep around 9.
Apple creature:
Tasting the fresh broccoli:
