Busy Man

Thaddeus makes us all laugh when he plays because he seems so serious and purposeful about what he is doing.

He was playing with blocks here yesterday after his nap while Sarah and Julie were over, and was moving them around in the little wagon that they are kept in. There were two blocks missing so two holes, and he was moving blocks from full spaces to empty ones, over and over and over, essentially rearranging them endlessly while we were talking. Eventually Sarah pointed out that although he was doing almost nothing, he felt it was something significant and at one point when the blocks looked no different to us, he clasped his hands in delight and when Sarah congratulated him he bashfully scrunched up his shoulders, covered his face with his clasped hands and grinned!

This type of play is very typical for him and he will, for instance, get tupperware out of the pantry and use it to carry blocks around. He'll put blocks or other items from one container to the next, endlessly rearranging them, and carrying them to different locations in the house, such as from the living room carpet to the bottom step in the foyer and back again on various trays and in buckets. Every little movement is so purposeful and his face is so dead panned serious. He will not be interrupted except to be congratulated and sometimes not even them. If I try to talk to him he just brushes past as if he's too busy for such things.

What a funny silly little guy. I think he is absolutely delightful.

Not Again

Callia is still not feeling great about pictures.

Silliness

"Bunnybear"

He's almost good enough to eat.

Starting School

Tuesday was Callia's first day of Kindergarten at Hugh Mercer Elementary. Her teacher's name is Ms. Jones, who is a seemingly sweet and quite professional black woman who has apparently been teaching for about 30 years, according to Barbara down the street, who we met at the bus stop Tuesday afternoon. Anyhow, so far so good with school for Callia, although she has only gone for two days. Today she didn't go because she had some kidney tests down at VCU Medical Center and an appointment with the urinologist, which thankfully went quite well.


Comments Callia had about her first day of school:

While sitting in the car waiting to be dropped off at the curb:
"I don't want to go to school, Mommy, I think I just will miss you and I want to stay with you"

After school referring to my promise that someone would be there to hold her hand and help her to class:
"Nobody held my hand and I just had to walk down the hall and find my class where they pointed."

"I made a friend on the bus" "I don't know what her name is" "The bus driver was very very mad and yelling a lot" "Me and my friend were being quiet while the other kids were yelling when the bus driver got mad" "She was just yelling and yelling and yelling"

"I made a friend in class and her name is Clair"

"The B-I-B-L-E yes that's the book for me....we sang that song in class today"


So overall to me it sounds like a pretty rough start and I'm a bit concerned about how harsh her bus driver is. I'm sure Callia will be able to adjust but I'm not sure that I want her to get used to that kind of situation...I'll have to think about that for a bit. Running back and forth to pick her up and drop her off will be difficult especially once the weather starts getting cold and I'll have to bundle Thad and strap him into the car seat....ugh! We'll see. Callia's view so far is that school is good, despite all the negative comments. I think that in general she shared with me the things that she thought were bad and not so many of the things she thought were good, since she would probably consider good to be normal. Hopefully. Thank goodness she is a good communicator. What do parents do when there child isn't? I'd be out of my mind with worry.

Thanks Uncle Brent

Went down to MCV for Callia to get some tests done and Brent met us there. While we were hanging out in the garden and "lawn" of the Museum of the Confederacy next to the hospital he convinced Callia to let me take her picture by getting in the picture with her! Yay! So here are some long overdue pictures of Callia:In the picture above they are sitting on the anchor chain of the Merrimac, and below is our dear sweet Callia posing on a shaft from the same ship. I love this picture:
And one with Thad, too:

I think it'd be nice to actually visit this museum sometime. I'll probably need to wait until these little angels are a little older, though. :)

Rocks are fun...

...but tomatoes...





...are more fun!