Monday, September 19, 2005

So C's gone for three hours a day now that kindergarten has begun, but somehow it's made our lives busier! He's needed a lot of attention for the past week; it's taking a lot of effort for him to adjust to school, and he needs us to be very hands-on while he's home. After his first day last Monday, he came home in a great mood and said he had a wonderful time- I think he was relieved that all was well after he'd been worrying about it for so long. We were thrilled and figured everything would be fine from there on out, but the very next day we could tell things weren't great. (This is C, of course, who only tells us anything that happens at school if we bribe him, and nothing would make him tell us something that was actually BOTHERING him.) We talked to his teachers and it turned out he had been disciplined, which really upset him even though it was done very gently (it wasn't even an incident the teachers thought twice about), and it basically ruined his day. And the next. And the next. This week is starting out all right, and we're hoping it stays that way. He's still super-whiny and needy and throws fits if things don't go his way, though, which (honest!) isn't like him. We've made a big point of keeping his homecoming after school low-key- I hang out with him and read a book while Dan and A are elsewhere (usually working and napping, respectively), but as soon as more people enter the picture it's all over. So we're still trying to find a routine that works for everyone.

Except for keeping us up all night, every night, A has been delightful. We went to a friends' for dinner last night, and she had a great time "talking" to their six-month-old. She was also exposed to a doll for the first time, one of the vinyl-ish semi-realistic ones, and we couldn't tell if she was fascinated or disturbed by it. It definitely made an impression, at any rate.

She tugs at the sleeves of long-sleeved shirts and gnaws on the toes of socks or slippers. We've only had to occasionally introduce these in the past few weeks, when the mornings are chilly, and I feel so sorry that she's going to be subjected to these indignities on a regular basis quite soon. (I must say that I am thrilled by the change of weather for myself, though. I'm done with heat and humidity. A few months of coolness-without-frigidness would be nice. Too bad we live in upstate New York....)

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