Today, I dropped Peyton off first, then hustled to get Brandon to school before the bell rang. I tried this way this week, since I had class, too. There was lots of traffic because of the walkers, so I was stuck. I cut my losses and parked about 3 blocks away, and got out and walked with Brandon the rest of the way. I didn’t want to spend too much time in the playground, since that was the site of the incident just last night. He was there for 2 minutes before the bell rang. He picked up his backpack, which was at the front of the line, but saw that the students had lined up already, so he went to the back of the line. After they got to the class, all the kids dropped off their mail folders and lined up to head to flag salute. I’m getting to know the routine now, so I knew what to do. He headed out with one of the kids that was teasing him yesterday. While they were walking, I heard him say, “Let go of my hand!” They are supposed to hold hands, but he needed to adjust his sweatshirt. R didn’t let go, so he shouted, “I said, ‘Let go of my hand!'” Okay, so he could have been a little nicer, but we’re taking baby steps here. He used his words. R let go, or Brandon shook his hand out, and then he fixed his jacket, and they grasped hands again. Luckily, they were soon at the salute, and they were busy with following the directions for the pledge of allegiance and pledge to the school. After salute, I waved bye, and told him I’d see him after school. I went to my class, while he went to his. Today’s topic was how to create and support all kids, yours as well as others. I was a bit sad, thinking about the kids at MA. I had a good relationship with the kids there, they felt comfortable, I knew their names, and said hi, and got hi’s back. I volunteered at field trips and knew many of the kids he hung out with, and it was easy. Now, we have to do it all over again. I guess I’m in the same boat he is, having to “make new friends” again, since I had had parent friends at his old school. My class is helping me with that, as the lunchtime monitor is there, and I’ve volunteered myself for Fridays to supervise the kids eating their lunches and helping open containers, etc. I was walking back to my car, around the school, and the kinders were at recess. I saw Brandon, and unlike last week, he saw me. At first, I didn’t think he saw me, as I was trying to keep a low profile, but then he looked right into my eye. I didn’t say anything, and neither did he. I put my head down, when his teacher said, “Um, HI!” I looked up and sheepishly waved at her. I told her I was trying not to have him see me, since I didn’t want to disturb him. She said it was okay. I still didn’t feel right, so I quickly walked away. I drove home, then after about 20 minutes, headed out the door, this time walking. There is a walking program at school, and whenever the child walks, he/she gets a punch on a frequent walker card. I can only do this on Fridays, since I don’t have time during the week to invest in the 1.5 mile trek. I am getting better at timing it, so I’m not just hanging out at the school. Actually, it pushes me to make it there before the bell, since I had called the after school program to tell them I’d be picking Brandon up. The teacher that I spoke to, who was the same as the teacher who called me to pick Brandon up on Wednesday answered. She told me there was a note for me to indicate Brandon had a good day on Thursday. She wanted me to know, and I ended up talking to her for about 15 minutes about strategies that had worked in the past at MA. I picked Brandon up, and his teacher told me about his great day today. He had a few reminders to keep his hands to himself, but otherwise, it was good. Brandon was excited to tell me he was green ALL DAY LONG. I was already excited to be able to show him the note from after school program, and this was good news, too. I walked him over to the office, too, and got our punch card started. The child is supposed to get a punch for each direction they walk. I told her how far we live, and she automatically gave us 3 punches! Some kids literally live across the street from school. Yeah, they should be walking. We are on the border, so we’re one of the farthest away from school. So we had a good walk back, and he was telling me about his day. He was getting tired (it was hot!) so I had to creative to get him home. I told him that he had already received the stamps, so we had to get home. He said he wanted someone to carry him, and I told him I’d want someone to carry me, too. That got a laugh. I gave him a choice of routes, and he chose the quieter, shadier route. I made a deal with him; he could walk in the shade, but run in the sun. The street was tree-lined, so we had small breaks where there was sun. He had fun, but then said, “You have to run, too!” So we both ran/walked home. We got home, and since I was carrying his backpack, I was drenched. I changed, and he washed up, and we both had lunch. I decided to try something I’d learned in my class “Rose and Thorns”. I asked him “What was the good part of your day? (ROSE)?” He said, “Getting green.” Then I asked him what the hardest part of his day. He said, “Ah, in recess.” I asked him what happened. He said he was on the structure, and R was trying to push him off. He said, “I told him to leave me alone,” and then I walked away. Then I told him, “Well, then you turned a thorn into a rose!” He thought about it, and just nodded his head in agreement. While not really doing much for his relationship with R, at least he wasn’t using his hands and no one got hurt.
After lunch, I took him with me to get my friend a baby shower gift. I then went to get him a small lego figure for his good day. Dave spoiled him with a much larger gift on Monday, but that didn’t seem to work later in the week. We headed to my work after that. I had his workbook, crayons, and pencil/erasers all set to go. I missed work on Wednesday since I had to pick him up, so he was going to sit quietly while I made up my time. He was pretty good about using his whisper voice, but he did test me by giving little “chirps” or noises to give me up. I told him I didn’t want to be fired, so he needed to be quiet. He made enough noise for the technician to come investigate. I had him in a borrowed cubie right next to me, and for the most part, he was able to figure out what he needed to do on his pages. I told him I needed him to be quiet so I could concentrate and finish my problems (case reviews). I counted them down to him, and he was interested to know how many I had. After 5 pages, he got his seaweed snack. Then, after another 2-3, he was done and started drawing plants vs zombies on paper. He was getting very detailed, using all the plants he learned about last weekend while playing. At one point, Nela said hi to us over the wall. She just said, “Robyn?” I said hi, then she said, “Brandon?” (Dennis had told her we were there). Brandon didn’t know what to say, and I nodded it was okay to say hi. He let out the puniest squeak of a “Hi” back over the wall.
Later, Brandon heard Bonnie say, “Hi, this is Bonnie…” Brandon looked up and said, “OH! It’s Auntie Bonnie! Can I go say hi?” I told him he had to wait. He had to wait until I was ready to go before we went over there to say hi. I finished up, signed out and took him over to say hi. Everyone was wondering why I was there, so I told them about me having to leave early on Wednesday to pick him up. We left after that, and went to pick up Peyton. We stopped by Brandon’s favorite teacher’s classroom, and she asked him how he was doing. Before we went in there, I had told him it was okay to talk to her and tell her what was going on. Being among the most known effective vardenafil india component for augmentation pills for men can be the primary cause of bad relationships between lovers or a couple. There is a range of benefits associated with the use of Tentex Forte tablet The foremost and most important benefit concerned with the use of herbal alternative to cialis sale psychicchakrareiki.com he attained extreme sensitivity in his penis, more sexually excited and he now feels easier to make hard, strong and long lasting erections. Due to unknown reasons, the levitra 20 mg body’s immunity starts attacking itself in auto immune disorders including diabetes. You can cialis sale click to find out more also find combination tablets for erectile dysfunction and oligospermia. He said, “Well, I had a bad week. Then I had a good week.” I corrected the second “week” with “day”. She pulled him aside, sat down with him, and talked to him. She truly cares about him, and he feels comfortable talking to him. She encouraged him when he told her he had greens today. He didn’t have to explain it to her, as she took the lead, and figured it out. I whispered, “Thank you!” to her, and I appreciated having another person help bolster Brandon’s self-esteem. The class also notes the importance of having adults to talk to who are NOT the kids’ parents. I can definitely see him wanting to talk to Tarez. He asked her for some goldfish from snack, and then we headed out. It was weird for me to not pick up his belongings from their room. Out of habit, I was going to reach into where his cubby used to be and get his sheets since it was Friday. We said goodbye, and then headed to pick up Peyton. Her teacher also welcomed Brandon when she saw him. She was telling him how tall he was, but he was bashful. Peyton was excited, but I asked her to finish cleaning up after her snack and wash her hands before we headed out. She’s been doing a great job keeping her clothes clean. And she knew right away what that meant. She said, “I get to watch Aladdin?” By the time we got home, both kids wanted to watch Tangled. They both agreed, but both don’t like watching about half of the movie since it’s dark and scary. Peyton doesn’t like “The Muddah part, Tangle’s Muddah is scary.” Dave came home, and I tagged out to have dinner with Tracy. Tracy and I had a nice dinner, and we were able to catch up with our respective European vacations. The last time we met, I had Peyton with me, and it was a little difficult to really talk. Dave was a bit miffed that I was leaving AGAIN. To make it up to him, I brought him food home. He was excited because he thought I ordered it for him, but it was more than half of my entree. I saved room for dessert 🙂
Brandon and Peyton's Blog