week ending oct 28, 2007:

October 28, 2007: Alex has been having a hard week this week. He’s had 3 tantrums, one of them at school which resulted in his being sent to the office. There is no other repercussion associated with being sent to the office, no “this will go down on your permanent record” talk, no spanking or anything, the teachers just have their hands full with their students and don’t have time to deal with a child who won’t go along with the group. But, as soon as they got in the car after school Chloe told me “there is a place at school called the office where they send bad kids and Alex had to go there because he wouldn’t walk”, so Alex got the idea that going to the office is a punishment and he’s ashamed. Even before the incident he didn’t want to go to school and feeling ashamed just compounds his dislike of school. Fortunately the next time they go to school is Tuesday and it is the Halloween party, so at least he’s got something to look forward to.

On Wednesday we were all supposed to go to the aquarium with Grammy Barb, but Alex had already had 2 (unrelated) tantrums that week and then he told me he didn’t want to go the aquarium. I got out the pictures from our last trip to the aquarium and Alex just calmly reiterated that he was not going to go. I thought about it for a while and decided that a trip to the aquarium with crowds and lots of unfamiliar experiences would probably just further stress Alex out and that a calm day at home with Grammy Barb might be just the ticket. So Chloe and I went to the aquarium and had a fabulous time and Alex stayed home and had a nice time. When I got home I showed him all 80 pictures that Chloe and I took and mostly he was interested in them, but at one point he did mention that he was a little sad that he’d seen the dolphins. Our pictures http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/Aquarium2007

Also this week the kids started swimming lessons. I had signed the kids up before they started to hate school and before Alex was showing signs of being stressed out. The kids had a great time at their lesson and liked their teacher and I stayed in the pool area (in the 85F 85% humidity instead of on the other side of the observation glass) so that Alex would be able to see that I was right there.

Also this week we bought some new tea and the kids were very excited about it. They are so fascinated with each step of making the tea as though heating water, bobbing a tea bag, waiting for it to steep, wringing out the bag, and stirring in milk and sugar are each steps in some magic spell. We bought a multipack of caffeine-free herb teas with flavors like lemon, orange, ginger, cinnamon apple, and chamomile. They willingly tried all those new flavors (which a big deal for kids their age who usually reject the unfamiliar).