David Weekly, #51

So this has been a busy week, again...David went to urgent care on Saturday, because his heart was "racing," and his coughing didn't stop, even after another nebulizer treatment. So Jesse and I took David to the urgent care clinic, where the doctor said that his lungs are inflamed, so we got a prescription to open his airways. The medicine we got is called prednisone, which acts differently than the albuterol. Albuterol relaxes the muscles in his lungs. The prednisone reduces or removes the inflammation. While we were waiting for the doctor, I asked David if he could make me feel better, and he said no, because he's not a doctor yet.

On a related note, David also says his nose is walking, because it's not running. In fact, at this point, his nose has four states that he describes, and they are degrees of the same thing. Either his nose isn't working, or it's blinking (bwinking), or it's walking, or it's running. I wish I could figure out how he came up with the middle two. It certainly is inventive!

One day this week, David comes out of his preschool and tells me that he can roll his tongue! He's so excited! And he sticks out his tongue, and rolls it for me. And does it all the time now. It's quite fascinating, it would seem.

Now, remember last week when I talked about him "touching things with his eyes" and he literally does it? Well, yeah, as for David touching things when I tell him not to? It really is sarcastic...I told him very specifically that I didn't want him touching something, when we were at a store, and he reaches out his hand, and just "touches" it...not grabbing it or picking it up or anything. And looking for my reaction. I gave him none. But he didn't touch anything else, either.

On one of the mornings that I have David with me, I took the panels off the hot tub, to try to figure out where the leak is, since I fill it with water, and it leaks it all out. I spent some time explaining this to him. He understood. The funny thing about the hot tub leak is this: David's "crisis" when he wants me to hurry, is "before the hot tub leaks!" So when he wants me go hurry up, he says, "Hurry! Before the hot tub leaks! Let's go!" It doesn't matter what we're doing or where we're at, that's just the crisis that is resolved by us hurrying...if we don't hurry, the hot tub will leak...

David says, "Yes or no" when asking someone else, especially another kid, if they want to do something, and they don't respond. David says, "Do you want to go play?" Then no reponse. Then he says, "Yes or no." If there's still no response, then he complains to me about it. Today at the park he was playing with a kid that is 4, but David was more well spoken, articulate, and well behaved than the other kid. We were throwing a frisbee around and the kid asked me how David was able to throw it so well. My answer: I don't know, he just figured it out for himself. I tried to show the other kid how to throw the frisbee better, and after a while David got in on the act, trying to tell this other kid, too.

More stuff about school: He told me a kid at school said a bad word: "Booty," which he whispered to me. I didn't think it was a bad word, so I just said, "It's a word. Don't worry about it." It would also seem that David has been taught how to hold a pen/pencil/crayon in the normal, grown up way. It's an amazing thing! I didn't think this would happen for a couple more months, at least. But what it's done for him is make him suddenly want to color, and draw. So he gets out his crayon box, and I give him some paper, and he colors. Just moving the crayons across the paper, in different ways. It's not totally random, from what I can tell, but his very limited skill is being put to the test. It looks random, though. Sometimes he'll walk away from it, and come back and tell me that he has to finish his homework or his work...other times he announces that he's coloring a piece of paper...We went out to eat the other day and as he was coloring, he says he has a surprise for me. I haven't got him coloring in coloring books, though. Time to invest in some, I suppose.

Another thing that's happening is he's learning to tell time. He's getting concepts of the clock in his head, because he'll set arbitrary times for things, like "six minutes!" or "When it's 12?" I think he means the minute hand getting to the 12. There's other things about this, I'm sure. I just don't really know what they are.

I love his imagination: sometimes he says, with is "buddy" over his head, "I'm pretending to be a ghost!" I find it interesting that he says he's pretending to be, rather than actually is, a ghost.

Lastly, we've been talking about exercise, and staying healthy. David repeats some of this: "Exercise so I can stay healthy." But I'm not totally sure he understands what it means, as it's more than just "not being sick." But it's a topic of interest to him.

So I hope you're staying healthy and well...

Rusty