David Weekly, V3 - 4

All day Saturday, David has been asking to paint his "foam flyers", little foam planes that he can paint. We finally got to do it. He's a happy child. We took a walk and he noticed as he was talking about something, and the last words in his sentence were "two, too", and then he realized it, and laughed at himself, and repeated it: "two, too!"

Routine is very important to David. He does not let me forget to brush his teeth, and we have to do the nose spray. If I forget, he reminds me.

David showed Cinnamon a mop my mother got me, and he says, "Look what I got! A mop!" He's excited about getting a mop. It's amazing what this kid likes and thinks is his.

He got to spend Tuesday night with his cousins, and ate some chili, very mild. He complained that it was "spice," though. But he ate it, and didn't complain. It's just getting him past that first "I don't wike it!" issue.

Wednesday, something major happened with David. I was giving him a bath, and I saw on his back two different bruises. One of them is about the size of an adult's pinky finger, and the other was red, and as if his skin was rubbed raw quickly through the shirt. I asked him how he got these, and of course, he says he doesn't know. I let it pass.

The next morning I took him to school like normal, and asked Ms. Sandra, one of his teachers, about the bruises on his back. I even took David to a private area of the room where no one else could see to show her these bruises. She told me that David had been in a fight. And then proceeded to tell me that he was on top of another boy, beating down on him (David straddling the other boy, who was on the ground). This other boy is older and bigger than him, by the way. She also said that he and this other boy were in the room alone, unsupervised, and that while she could see this transpire, was unable to get to them because she saw them through the window of a locked door. The time of this incident was about 2:45 PM.

I was not told of it Wednesday; I had to ask Thursday after seeing the bruises. I was not provided with any kind of incident report at any point. I withdrew David from Gabriel's Glen Thursday, got a VPK transfer form, and he is now enrolled at a place called "Learning Space." I looked over the place, spoke with the director, and decided it was an ok place. David will be in VPK with 9 other children, and the after school kids seem to be of a higher class than the ones at Gabrielle's Glen. Same goes for the people in charge and the teachers/employees. It just seems to be a higher level of personnel and kids. It's small, too, about 30 - 40 kids total for the whole place. I asked one of the children how he liked it there, and he said that he hates it, because they make him drink water and have healthy snacks, instead of cookies. I thought that was pretty funny. It also gave me some confidence that it's a good place. I'll take pictures and send them next
week.

David got to spend the evening Thursday with his cousins. As always, he had fun.

Friday I took him to the Learning Space. Jesse (the one who had kept David on Saturdays, and does occasionally now) works there, and I have faith that she will help keep David in line, and let me know if things aren't right. I'd had issues with Gabrielle's Glen, but Wednesday and Thursday brought to my attention how serious the situation with that place was becoming. I did not make this decision lightly, but I did make it quickly. David clearly had a safety issue that was not being addressed, as I have been asking for information, but it obviously wasn't being very well relayed to me.

So I took him to the school. They want him there at 8 AM to make sure he gets breakfast. I stayed with him for about 30 minutes to make sure he was going to be ok. He was done with me after about 10 minutes. I left with no issues.

At the Learning Space, Ms. Nadine (the director, and owner, I believe) let me know that David has a very clear behavior issue with hitting. She said that it's something she will work on with him, as he was very aggressive, and hit just about every kid in there. This is obviously unacceptable, and I spoke with him about it as well. Ms. Nadine was speculating that with the fighting, it was something that David learned as a way to get along, and to sometimes hit other kids first, so that they wouldn't do it to him. Basically, the environment he was in. I feel good that on the first day the director was giving me honest feedback about his behavior, so I will also be working to reinforce the no-hitting rule at home, though I don't have an issue with it at home. This will be a challenge. She believes that the people who were caregivers at Gabrielle's Glen were too tolerant of the fighting. Rachel told me that she had seen once when she picked up David two boys
wrestling on the ground, and a caregiver's indifference to this behavior. It's good that he's not there anymore. Hopefully this will answer his concern about not wanting to go to school.

I discovered as I was researching the transfer of the VPK that there is no restriction on the size of classes. David being the 10th child in a classroom is another benefit of this move. I'm not sure how many kids were in his old class, but it seemed like a lot.

The biggest drawback to David not going to Gabrielle's Glen is that he will not continue to be in the dancing class. This means that I have to find some other kind of activity for him, or another place for him to dance. I will have to see if Judy Bernard Dancers can still have him dance, but after I'm off work?

Lately David has been sucking on his fingers, no idea why. On the way home from his new school, David told me he wanted pizza. I told him that he'd miss Dinosaur Train (his favorite show) if we went to the store to get pizza. He declined, saying that he'd rather have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead.

It's been quite a week. From quiet, to explosion, to major change.