David Weekly, V3 - 15

This week was another rough one for David. He actually had more trouble readjusting this week than last week. He got lots of X's on the calendar for his behavior at school. Lots of hitting, lots of kicking, not listening to the teacher.

Saturday we went to the Story Telling Festival. David didn't appreciate it, and wanted to go home the whole time. At the beginning we went to the book fair that they have, and bought a few books. In particular, we bought some small board books of dinosaurs, and one or two other books. David really likes the dinosaur books. He noticed that one of the dinosaurs (the Spinosaurus (he corrected me on the pronunciation - it's spine - o - saurus, not spin - o - saurus)) looks like another dinosaur (can't remember that one). I had to point out that they are not the same dinosaur, even though they look similar. One has smaller front arms/legs than the other one. David liked the professional story tellers. They really did keep his attention for the most part. The stories they told were mostly out of Asia, the Phillipines, and Japan. After the professionals, we went to walk around, and ran into a mime. David didn't quite know what to make of the mime. Someone who doesn't talk, and only gestures was a difficult concept for him. Later in the week he made a reference to the mime. It wasn't so bad after all. I told him that the reason I brought him to the storytelling festival was to introduce him to new things. He wasn't really having it, though. It does seem to take him a while to integrate new things into his experience. We also listened to a story from Louisiana about frogs (liberally sprinkled with Cajun French), and heard, and participated with, drummers from Africa.

We spent the rest of the day hanging out at home, had lunch, read his new books, and just generally played.

Sunday we went a beautiful park with Rachel, her kids, and my friend Tracy. This was a big church picnic. We got there later than everyone else. He'd fallen asleep in the car on the way there, since it's a bit of distance from our house. When we got there, he turned into Mr. Shy. I had to carry him from the car. When it was time to play games, he wanted every turn to be his. So he wouldn't share, and he cried a lot. We eventually went for a walk to the "mountains"...actually, Jared and Avery dragged David and I along with them. These "mountains" were pretty cool. About 20 feet high, and had oak trees growing at the top of them. I explained the root systems of the trees, because the hills had eroded away so much over the years since the trees got established you could see the roots. I don't know the source of these hills, since they are certainly not a naturally occurring formation. Generally, though, David was difficult, and didn't have the best time. Yet, he cried when it was time to go. He fell asleep in the car again on the way back home.

I forgot that I took David to two different doctors: Dr. Sams on Friday (April 23), then Dr. Siegel, the allergist. Dr. Siegel knocks David on the forehead, to check for pain in his sinuses. David doesn't like this. So this time I have him tell the doctor not to do it anymore. I was proud of him for standing up for himself, because he was able to say "Don't do that anymore" to a grownup. David is 43 pounds/inches...the reason for Dr Sams was that on Monday last week I took David to after hours care because he had bad ear pain, and sure enough, it was an ear infection. David woke me up Sunday night screaming in pain...he hadn't been acting like anything was wrong (in spite of Amanda telling me about his ear infection).

How David eats cereal: a bowl of milk, and cereal on the side. He puts small amounts of cereal in the bowl, then eats it out of the bowl with the milk and a spoon. We do this since he would get Frosted Mini-Wheats, which would turn soggy in the bowl after a few minutes, then he would claim to be full. So I came up with this solution to enable him to keep the cereal crunchy, but be able to eat it with milk.

Tuesday night, I got a very sincere discussion from David about nightmares. He told me about his fears: dinosaurs, monsters, zombies...all things he's seen on Scooby Doo, and Power Rangers. Even though at the end they always conquer the monsters, he's afraid.

This week's Deep Thought from David: "Why do we color Easter Eggs?" This question just came out of nowhere. That kid surprises me all the time with questions like this...

Lastly, David got the idea, after reading a book about the zoo, that we should take the book with us to the zoo. So...I'll tell you all about our trip to the zoo next week.