Monday was our parent teacher conference at school. I'm pleased to report that Derek is meeting or exceeding all literacy benchmarks for his age AND has made friends of a sort. He shows a strong preference to a boy named Tyler in class and Tyler's parents would like us to get together for playdates and such. Yay!
I wish wish wish my digital camera was working because I would love to post pictures of some of Derek's writing. He is writing and drawing on practically everything these days. He can write the words "penny" and "moon" and likes to write jibberish all over the paper. He gets worksheets at school that have a letter, then a line of other letters and his job is to pick out the letter that matches the first letter. He recreates these at home and makes me do them. He also likes to draw on himself and the walls and somehow always draws his best artwork there. Yesterday it was a picture of a person sleeping in a carseat on his arm. A few weeks ago he drew an expressive person on my bedroom wall and it's still there, partly because I am lazy, but mostly because I am impressed. I think since school started he has spent more time drawing than lining up toys. Holy cow! She's a powerful sorceress, this Ms. McCormick.
Derek is with typical kids for Music and PE and is doing well. Some humming and weird vocalizing, but overall very well behaved.
Overall, I think Derek is in a really good placement for Kindergarten, about the best it could be given our financial and geographic constraints. And for that I give Thanksgivings.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Still Eating at the Table - Woot!
Just wanted to let both of you know that we are still eating at the table with good consistency. Yay for us!
Errands after school are really hard, though. Derek is exhausted and cranky and I've been dealing with plenty of crap at work, so patience is in short supply on both sides. Some afternoons are mostly temper tantrum, recovery, temper tantrum, recovery, temper tantrum, etc. But we had a good day yesterday. We didn't go anywhere because I did the grocery shopping before he came home from school. I wasn't feeling cranky or spacey from work, he didn't have to behave properly in the overwhelming grocery store.
Derek is excited about traffic lights these days. He used to have a compulsive thing where he would only walk down the street if the light up ahead was red. He hasn't done that in awhile. Now he likes to make his vehicles wait for the light when he's playing. He's really bossy and makes us all wait incredibly long. If there were real traffic lights that long, I'd fire the traffic engineer. Derek also comments on the state of the traffic lights as we are driving.
I went to yoga class in ages yesterday. My work got a grant to bring in a yoga class to the students and the teacher has extended complimentary yoga classes to the staff. The teacher is excellent and I enjoyed myself very much. My therapist will be proud of my excellent self care. Derek got to hang out with Sean and Uncle Adam, which he usually seems to like. Once it becomes part of the routine, I hope everybody will look forward to Wednesdays.
Next time I will try to comment more on the tantrums and think about how they could be prevented.
Errands after school are really hard, though. Derek is exhausted and cranky and I've been dealing with plenty of crap at work, so patience is in short supply on both sides. Some afternoons are mostly temper tantrum, recovery, temper tantrum, recovery, temper tantrum, etc. But we had a good day yesterday. We didn't go anywhere because I did the grocery shopping before he came home from school. I wasn't feeling cranky or spacey from work, he didn't have to behave properly in the overwhelming grocery store.
Derek is excited about traffic lights these days. He used to have a compulsive thing where he would only walk down the street if the light up ahead was red. He hasn't done that in awhile. Now he likes to make his vehicles wait for the light when he's playing. He's really bossy and makes us all wait incredibly long. If there were real traffic lights that long, I'd fire the traffic engineer. Derek also comments on the state of the traffic lights as we are driving.
I went to yoga class in ages yesterday. My work got a grant to bring in a yoga class to the students and the teacher has extended complimentary yoga classes to the staff. The teacher is excellent and I enjoyed myself very much. My therapist will be proud of my excellent self care. Derek got to hang out with Sean and Uncle Adam, which he usually seems to like. Once it becomes part of the routine, I hope everybody will look forward to Wednesdays.
Next time I will try to comment more on the tantrums and think about how they could be prevented.
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