David Weekly, #46

David has a cold. Runny nose, cough, unhappy in a number of different ways. He says his nose is blinking, and that his blanket doesn't work, because he can't smell it. "It's not working, daddy!" Lots of tears, too, which only makes his nose stuff up, and then me having to wipe his nose...when he wipes his own nose, he does it across his face, from his nose to his cheek, so now his cheeks are chapped, bright red, and putting lotion on it just makes it hurt more. Poor kid. I've been working with him not to do that, but it's hard...At one point, when the cold was at its worst, he was saying "yuck-yuck-yuck-yuck" over and over. He was mostly over it by Monday, though, so it was just a rough weekend. His nose still runs a little bit, "blinking," and I am wiping a lot with the tissue. Or Kleenex. I've told him that some things have two words associated with them, so he now calls it a tissue-kleenex, rather than one name or the other. The reason for this is that he would get mad at me for calling it a tissue, and he'd yell at me: "Kweenex!" And he is getting better at the "L" sound, but it's not all there yet. I forget now what he was saying the right way with the L, but it was there.

We did spend part of the day at my sister's house on Sunday though, which was nice. He played well with Jared and Avery, who are working on science fair type projects. I would tell him to be quiet so Avery could do her research, and he'd whisper very loudly, which was pretty funny, because it really wasn't quiet.

And he's becoming a bit defiant. I know it's good for him, in terms of separation, but the child needs to learn when to quit, which he will, because more time-outs are happening to him lately. He sometimes tells me "shhh!" when I say something he doesn't want to hear. When he does, I send him to time out! He also tries to put his hand on my mouth to get me to stop talking, which is funny sometimes because I'm not saying anything "important", but other times it's a real annoyance. He's also getting more physically aggressive, too. That will be tempered, too, with more time outs...

David has gained the ability to report narrative. Yesterday morning, he was saying, rather at random, that you have to drive really slowly when there's ice on the road, and turn very slowly, too. Complete w/ pantomime of him holding the steering wheel and turning it. He's actually doing that a lot, just telling me a complete (but still short) story, at random. I don't know what triggers these little stories in his brain, but I'm getting treated to some of the things that happened with him when he was in Missouri, because he does talk about that a lot. I don't even ask him anything. Just something goes off in his brain, and there's another little story.

He knows the story of "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" by heart. As in, each word in the story in its correct sequence, all the way through. If I mis-read something, he corrects me, and it's right, of course.

This week has been extremely routine for some reason. He's getting to where we have complete conversations. He reports to me things he sees on TV, or little things he does when we play. He likes to watch the Word World DVD's that we've got, over and over. But I'm glad he does that because he's learning how to spell and say words that way. He tells me P-I-E for pie, and how the word turns back into letters when something happens. He's learning words because of the books that we read, too.

Friday we went to the zoo, and he had me running almost through the entire park! And then later we went to the "green park" which is the park by the water with the green playground equipment. He loves going down that slide! He also has me talking into the slide like a sports announcer, which I do in French and English, and he won't let me stop...What I'm saying is usually just play-by-play. "He's going up the step, sitting down, and sliding! down!!" He just thinks that's "AWESOME!" which he says with regularity. Awesome!

So it's been a good week. I hope you've had a good week, too.

Rusty