David Weekly, #69

David and I went to his first movie in a movie theater. The movie was "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs." David was able to follow the movie along, got some of the jokes, got bored at one point, and towards the end he got scared to the point that I covered his eyes, but that only lasted a minute or two. Overall, he really liked the movie. At one point he saw a part where everything was a mess. He said, "Everything is ruined!" Smart lad, that. He brought his "buddy" with him, for comfort, and because in my experience, movie theaters get cold. David knows what the "Wild Things Are." We were watching movie previews, which he really liked, and the movie trailer for this movie came on. I was surprised he knows about "The Wild Things", because that's one book we don't have. (Guess I'm going to the book store to get it!) But he was saying that he wants to be one of them, complete with horns. He sure does make me laugh.

I've also decided to enroll him in the dance class offered through Gabrielle's Glen. We went to buy him some tap shoes...and when he tried them on, he did not like how slippery they are! They don't have rubber grips like regular shoes of course, so David didn't want to even walk on them. I put him on the platform they had and had him tap his feet to get a better understanding of how they would feel, and sound. He liked that. When he went in, the lady asked him why he was there, and he said "to get tap shoes," but almost under his breath. He was pretty happy he got them, though.

I forgot to put in last week's note that David had a pretty bad allergy attack, where he was vomiting mucus, and doing a lot of coughing. I had had him at Rachel's house, and I picked him up at about 9. I got him home, gave him his "night time medicine" (which is "sour" as he says, and this is distinguished from his "morning time medicine" - the Xyzal, which has no flavor, apparently), and a nebulizer. He fell asleep about 20 minutes later. Don't have any idea what caused this fit. Nothing unusual about Rachel's house...he's been there for hours and hours before with no ill effects...so maybe it was a one time thing?

And David loves his "Blue's Clues" game on the computer. The object of the game is find all three of Blue's clues, but so far, he's only found one. And he has to click on just about everything in Steve's house to figure out what the clues are. There's puzzles and some other stuff he can do as he goes about Steve's house looking for clues. The music gets stuck in my head, and he often leaves the game running, with the music in the background just playing and playing...

Monday night, after having spent a couple of hours at Avery and Jared's house, David hears some music on the radio that reminds him of "at the Missouri"...and he plaintively says he wishes he could be in two places at the same time, in Florida, and at the Missouri.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. David enjoys playing with Josh at the playground where I'm playing softball. There are plenty of adults around who keep up w/ the kids, so supervision is not an issue. There was an incident though, where a little girl found a softball, that David wanted. Eventually I gave him a different one, and it satisfied him. Then Josh decided he wanted a ball, too, and was trying to take it from David. So David followed my example and got Josh his own ball. It was so cute. This was on Wednesday night. We got McDonald's for dinner, and had a quiet meal together at the big table...

Friday night Jared spent the night so Rachel could participate in the 5K Breast Cancer Walk with Avery on Saturday morning. We played outside for a while, with David's car that he can ride on down the street. The thing is, he wants to "win" all the time. Be the first to reach whatever destination we might have, either at the end of the street, or back at the house. Jared and I would let him in front of us, and David would complain that we were getting too close or whatever, and he would cry, and stop walking. So I told him that he has to keep moving if he thinks he's in a race and wants to win, even if we're catching up. He didn't quite get this, although he did try it out, so maybe he did. I'm not totally sure. For dinner we had "Supreme" pizza, with onions and peppers and mushrooms on it. Not a problem for David. He liked it. Jared? Not so much. We watched some videos on youtube, such as the one with Carl Sagan being made to "sing" electronically. You can see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CldF6osKig. I really think the Carl Sagan video is beautiful, and I encourage you to watch it. Jared was trying learn the lyrics for it, which I loved (David had me play it over and over). And of course, David and Jared would fight over the space in front of the computer, but they were peaceful about it, too. The video reminds me of the Cosmos series from when I was a kid, and I hope David will get that same influence to be fascinated by the world around him. He already shows the capacity for being able to learn, and grow. And he sure knows how to ask "Why?" all the time. I remember being that way when I was a kid. I hope that I have the patience to answer his questions. He wants to know everything.

We also watched a few other kid friendly things, like Sponge Bob. Then we turned out attentions to "Monsters vs. Aliens," which just came out on DVD. What surprised me is that it was a little bit too much for David. It was extremely mild, yet there I was again covering his eyes once or twice. He got through the movie ok. He wants to stand in front of the TV, so I would ask him to come sit back on the couch with us. That child cannot sit still very well. But it was good he was into the movie.

And finally, Jared and David went to bed. Jared wanted to sleep on the couch, but David wanted to make sure Jared had a good place to sleep, so he took him into Colleen's old room and showed him the futon, and said, "But you're my cousin!" The implication being that his cousin deserved better than the couch that Jared wanted to sleep on. Jared ended up on the couch. I love David's sense of hospitality.

Last thing, unrelated to all the rest. When we get somewhere, I say, "Here we are, Pismo beach and all the clams we can eat!" (This is from Bugs Bunny, after he pops out of the ground, before he finds out he's in the desert) David corrects me: "Food. All the food we can eat." And I say, "but the quote is 'clams.'" He insists on "clams" being wrong, and "food" being correct. I told him that clams are food...but he didn't buy it. He doesn't care if they're food. So we have a running "argument" about that now. He's so funny.