David Weekly, V3 - 3

David says he switched his mind, and learned that "Race" doesn't have an "S" in it. I spelled "road race" for him (while he typed), and he says, "It doesn't have an "S" in it." I told him that the "ce" makes the "S" sound. No argument there from him, since he usually argues with me when he asks me something, I'll tell him, then he'll say, "no it's not."

Having conversation with David about being strong. He is very interested in being physically strong like the boys at school he plays with. I told him that he can be "strong" in other ways, like learning how to read. I think he bought it. He complained that it's hard, but I told him that's what make him stronger...Every day I get a report about what's going on with the boys at David's school. I'm getting more and more reports that go like this: "I didn't fight John Robert today." This always gets praise. He tells me he fights the other boys, but I'm not sure how much of this "fighting" is real, versus how much is pretend fighting. Based on the reports I get from his school, there's probably lots of "pretend-real fighting." I think it's just boys being boys. I'm working to channel that activity, limit it, etc. That's why David's proud of himself, because I'm telling him he's got to stop, and he's doing it. It's a slow process for sure.

David tells me that the kids at school call his hand "crab fingers." He's not a fan of that, but seems to take ok. That's what he tells me, at any rate, by just saying he was born with that...

In the realm of "what David does right," we have: he picks up the trash from Reese's peanut butter cups after he opens one and eats it. He's reading more of the words in the books, and it other places, too. For example, he was reading "Nick Jr." on the Blue's Clues DVD case, and read the "Nick" part, but couldn't find the "Jr." part. He says, "Where the 'Junior?'" I tell him it's the two letters. He gets it! He also plays with language: "It's 'Jr Nick!'" he says.

Saturday he went to the Gasparilla children's parade with Jesse, and got lots of beads.

Sunday we went to Rachel's house and made a volcano! It was Jared's science project, but David got to watch. He thought it was pretty exciting.

We've got our routine in the morning: David wakes up on his own, and shuffles out, slowly, to the kitchen where I am, on the computer. The reason he shuffles along is that he has his blanket over his eyes, and as he comes closer, he slowly moves closer to me, and occasionally will hit the little table next to the desk. Then he simply moves, and proceeds forward towards me, then curls himself up in my lap, and we sit and listen to music for a while. Then it's time for cereal, or eggs and toast, or a waffle. I try to convince him to eat peanut butter and preserves on the waffles. He usually goes for it. Once in a while he just wants butter and syrup.

Computer - David loves playing Diego on Nick Jr. He loves the "silly things" game. It's very entertaining to him, and makes him laugh.

"How many time until I can see my mommy?" "About 10 weeks," I reply. "Why are you asking?" "Because when people are far away, I miss them." He was also telling me that "the Missouri has lots of different kinds of food. Like Chinese food." Then he says, "Why don't we go out that often?" I tell him it's because he doesn't behave very well at the restaurant when we go. He thinks about this for a minute then says, "I'll try to do better next time."

Finally, it's been so much warmer here this week, that today we were able to go to school with no jacket on. David did want to wear two shirts though, so that made it easier to justify not having the jacket. It's still cool in the mornings, but even this morning it wasn't that cool...nowhere close to warm, though.

I hope you're staying warm where-ever you are.

David Weekly, V3 - 2

I'm sorry I didn't put this out last week. I feel that I have writer's block, and as a result I've been having trouble getting myself to record what's going on with David.

We're back in a normal routine: getting up, going to school, coming home from work/school/daycare...

This week, he asked me what's under the road. He also asks me other interesting questions about the world. I'm impressed to report that David has learned that the sunrise/sunset is merely the earth turning. And then he asks me why the earth turns. I explained that science doesn't know why, just that it does, and that the earth goes around the sun. Related to this, David was telling me that he likes all 4 of the seasons. I've not told him that the seasons are related to the earth's trip around the sun.

He's stayed with aunt and cousins at various points over the last two weeks. He really enjoys spending time with them. We all celebrated Avery's birthday at Mimi's house. And a good time was had by all.

In a related behavior note, he's beginning to get the message about not fighting at school, since he's telling me how didn't fight John-Robert (his nemesis at school) on a given day. David is also turning into a bit of chatterbox! He tells me all about his day, and his theories on life. He also mentioned again how he wants to have 10 fingers. I just said, yeah, it's hard when you're different...I'm going to have to get some more guidance on dealing with this aspect of his body and self concept as it relates. I'll need to schedule his Shriner's appointment now, and hope I get it for June.

And we spent some time where he asked me to write the word Saturday. When I wrote it out, he objected that it wasn't spelled right, because it didn't sound like the way it was spelled. We eventually settled on "SA-er day". I explained about the "T" missing from the middle, since he tends to not say the middle parts of words, so he's now making more effort to say the middles of words. I also like that he is getting used to the "er" combination being the "r" sound.

The first weeks of January saw record low temperatures. In fact, at one point, the temperature as reported on one of my weather related applications, was 19º F. Florida experienced a record number of days below 60º as the high temperature, and a few days never got higher than 50º. The lows were usually in the mid to upper 20's, which is very very very unusual for this state. As the week got warmer last week, David actually got colder. The temperature as I compose this letter is 61º, and the high today was 75º. David went to school today in shorts. Of course, when it was cold, he was dressed warmly.

David plays with his dinosaur board, and puts the same dinosaurs on the board as he has in little figurines, which are about the same size.

Of his Christmas toys, he likes his scooter the best, since he rides it back and forth through the house, and outside on every opportunity. When he's going back and forth in the house, I'm reminded of the kid in the movie "The Shining" except that he doesn't have his finger talking to him about "red rum", and his father isn't going slowly insane. :-)

David had a doctor appointment followup last Friday, and while his ear is better, it seems to still have some infection. We have a followup visit scheduled for March, and the doctor told me that if his ear starts to hurt again, to let her know ASAP.

We're also enjoying the many new books for bed time reading that Santa brought for Christmas.

David tells me he hates babies. I ask him why, and he says, "Because they're really little. I hate little things." He does just fine around Jesse's little 4 month old baby, so I don't know what's going on with that. Maybe nothing?

I submitted the application for school choice, with Temple Terrace Elementary as my 2nd choice, and Lewis Elementary as my 1st choice. His default school, Folsom, is an A school as of last year, but its record before that is spotty. Separately, he went on a field trip to Chuck - E - Cheeses, and reminds me of it alot! He's concerned about being the strongest kid at his school, relative to his friends.

As usual, I am forgetting so much, and wishing I could write it all down. But that's some highlights from the last two weeks. See you next week.

David Weekly, V3 - 1

Hello all...Happy New Year! David got back to Tampa on January 6, at about 11 PM. He was actually awake, but I put him in bed, and made sure he was comfortable, and had him go to sleep. Thursday, I decided to take the day off, and spend it with him, to allow him time to transition back. So we spent the whole day together, doing things around the house; we finally got the Christmas lights off the house and fence and put away. David really helped, by pulling the extension cords up from where they were, even as I was doing it. He also got some time to play with his Christmas toys/presents, and we played Candyland, which he really liked. In fact, we played twice! David won one game, and I won the other. We went to the grocery store, and bought a few things, just to restock. It was also a good thing we stayed home, because he had very many trips to the potty, and even required at least two underwear changes. I only went out with him when I thought it safe to do so, without the probability of accidents.

Another thing I was doing was replacing the weather stripping on my door, and David was imitating me. I'd ask him to get something, do something...whatever, and he would, at some later point, begin to ask me to do things in the same manner as I'd asked him earlier. I'm glad I was polite!

Friday, he went back to school. Nothing much to report there, except that I discovered that I'm going to buy a costume for him that costs $50 so he can perform at the end of the year in a show, for his dancing. It's in early June, on a Saturday. I'll do my best to get video of it. He'll be one of only two boys from his school doing any dancing.

Friday night we played with his two different remote control cars. It was another discovery that they both use the same frequency, so either vehicle can be controlled by either controller, or one controller can control both cars.

David woke up Thursday night, crying, or not really woke up, as much as he was just crying in his sleep...I know he has mixed feelings about being home and away from his mommy and sissy...

So that's a short week. With the New Year, I'm changing a bit the format of the David Weekly: it's now going to have a volume number and an issue number, rather than just a number. I realize that I'm beginning a third year of writing to you about David, so it seemed to make sense to mark this with a different designation. So we're on Volume 3, Issue #1.