Day 2 of School, Dinosaurs, Pumpkins and Freak-Outs!

On Thursday night (September 6th), Garry sent me a text to come down to the backyard at around midnight. When I walked outside, all I saw were his feet sticking out from under some bushes..which is weird even for him. It turns out that he had cornered a cute little hedgehog in a tree and it was all curled up to avoid him. So I ran to get my camera and I too crawled under the bushes....at midnight...to see the little guy. I didn't get a very good picture but Garry did pet it. I am surprised it didn't turn around and bite him. He gets bitten by weird stuff like badgers and otters, so I guess a hedgehog is too mainstream for him.

 

 

Day two of Jack's school seemed to go well. I dropped him off and came home to unpack. Haha, just kidding -- I totally came home to take a nap! I slept for an hour and a half with my ear practically on the phone but it never rang and I got up and unpacked my room for the rest of the day. I had to take his old IEP to the school and take his albuterol and doctor's note to the nurse's office, so I got to the school pretty early and was able to look around a bit. That place is INCREDIBLE. It all looks brand new, has tall ceilings and lots of natural light and all of the latests gadgets and gizmos. The nurse's office looks like a cheerful Children's Hospital and the OT rooms are giant and filled with special toys and blocks and equipment. I am really happy that he is going to school there.

 

I walked to the classroom to pick him up and ended up talking to his teacher for a long time. She is a hoot! She said he only had one little issue and it happened in art class (the kids actually go to REAL art and music and PE classes!). Apparently, the art teacher wrote Jack's teacher's initials on his paper without explaining to him why she did it and he FLIPPED OUT because she "defiled his artwork"!!! LOL, his teacher explained what the initals were and she said Jack went from furious to completely okay with it. I love that she stays calm and talks to him in a way that he can understand. I am positive that he is going to have really great days and really bad days but this seemed like a good indication of a middle of the road day. She also said that Jackson LOVED doing mosaic artwork of his name and he spent over an hour placing the pieces just so and was very happy to be doing that. She showed me the name and it looked wonderful! He did such a good job. I think he will be just fine there.

 

His Day 2 outfit below:

 

I bought him some ice cream after we left and we went home and played outside until bedtime. He rode down the hill, played in his house, rode his scooter, played with marbles and added things to his collection of things that he finds in the backyard and thinks he should save. He has pinecones, marbles, snail shells, leaves and sticks in there, along with a few beads he found. It is a very boyish collection for sure.

 

 

Today is Saturday and we decided to take Jack to the DinoPark in Kaiserslautern. It was pretty warm and that made Jack act wilder than he has acted in a while. We had a lot of fun looking at the dinos and "Rapunzel's Tower" and the pumpkin sculptures until he had a freak out and we had to leave. And OH BOY did he ever freak the heck out! We had to walk a long way back to the car and Garry had to actually carry him while he screamed and fought. And guess what he decided to start hollering as we were approaching the car: 

 

"YOU ARE NOT MY MOMMY AND DADDY!!! YOU ARE STRANGERS!!!"

 

Oh.My.God.Yes.He.Did.

 

I have no idea why he decided to do that but I am honestly so surprised that no one tried to stop us and make sure we weren't kidnapping him, especially since he was fighting so hard. As punishment for that little stunt, he lost his DS for good and had to spend the rest of the night in his bedroom before he went to sleep (only an hour and half but still...). But..here's the thing: as soon as he got in his bedroom, I took his shoes and socks and shorts off of him and turned on his fan and he was just fine. He calmed down and played mostly happily in his room until he went to bed and it has me wondering if his sensory issues are aggrivated by the heat. He has ALWAYS reacted negatively to being too warm and I thought he just took after me because I enjoy being cool/cold and hate being hot but I wonder if it is more than that. That is something I intend on bringing up with his developmental pediatrician when I see him/her in the next few weeks.

 

Anyway, we did have a lot of fun before the freak out and here are the happy pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

This was on top of a building near where we were parked. I thought it was someone up there with a gun at first!!!

 

These guys were on a different building. Why? Because Germany, lol. I love it here!



 

 



The Drama King

I was reading some of my old pregnancy blogs today while Jackson played DS and I was reminded of a different me: a childless me, a witty me. My blogs were well-thought out and they were actually funny! Compared to the way I used to write, most of my posts are all "HURR DURR, pictures. HUR DUR, need to sleep." Hopefully, Jackson will keep behaving himself at school so that I am not too mentally exhausted to type at night.

 

It is a well-known fact that Jackson can be a little bit dramatic. After watching him fall to the ground as if in a dead faint and cry, "Ohhhh, it is so TERRIBLE!" because his Spongebob DVD froze up and yet dust himself off and keep playing after a fall that would make Spiderman cringe, I can tell you that "drama days" are not much fun. Once he gets set in his mood, there is nothing that hits his "reset" button except a full night's sleep.

 

He woke up around 8:00 today and griped with his DS throught breakfast and griped about playing outside because he was "booooooored" and he howled because his Daddy "was working FOREVER and EVER and would NEVER come home AGAIN". So, that was fun. I managed to keep him busy until it was time to go get his shot. Yeeeeeah...on an already "dramatic" day, my child needed a shot for school. Little Rock was out of the second Hep A shot for a long time and, to be honest, I totally forgot about it (yay, Mom of the Year award again!) but Garry got an email from the school saying "Hey. Go do this.". And last time Jack got shots, he had to have FIVE of them and he just grunted and shrugged it off, so I figured he would be fine. He wasn't upset about going, although he did attempt to wear extra padding when he dressed himself. Seriously.

 

 

Anyway, we went to the Immunizations Clinic and he entertained everyone in the waiting room with his antics and they called us back there and he got the shot. No biggie. He even sweet-talked the guy into giving him 8 stickers so that he could have a Lightning McQueen sticker that was farther back on the roll, lol. Lo and behold, when we started to walk down the long hallways of the clinic, he started complaining that the shot was just awwwwwfffuuul and proclaiming that his leg "was dead and gone" and he actually dragged his leg behind him the whole way back to the car. Do I think that it started stinging when he was walking? Probably...but I think that he saw people laughing and he decided to play it up. He is so bad! Here is him standing by the car with his stickers and his sad face.

 

 

Afterward, we ran to the BX for his PE shirt and art class shirt, met Garry to get me added to the bank account, he bounced all over the place and we stopped at the sunflower U-pick place right outside of town.

 

 

View of our village town-limits from the field:

 

 

And then we went home.

To his nemesis, the DS.

 

 

Yep. He got mad "because Patrick keeps getting in my way and the big blue jellyfish escaped AGAIN and I can't ever win this game and WHY ISN'T MY DADDY HOME TO JELLYFISH FOR ME and....omg....heisn'tcominghomeeverbecausehewillbeatworkFOREVER!!!!". So the DS got to take a nap and we went back outside to play.

 

He got this little tractor ride-on toy from Garry's parents for his first birthday and he has discovered a new use for it. He rides it down his "secret pirate passage", ringing the windchimes with his head as he thunders down the hill. It is actually pretty funny to watch, lol.

 

 

 

That last picture just makes me laugh. He is such a freaking boy. I finally made him put some pants on when he got enough energy out to not accuse me of trying to suffocate his knees or something equally dramatic and suddenly I heard a noise.

 

Meow.

 

Critterbug AND Junebug ran out of the door, which the wind blew open! Critterbug headed for his usual woods-spot but I managed to snatch him up before he got there and Jackson boldly went after Miss Junebug.

 

Here he is with his tamed beastie:

 

 

He was so proud of catching her, lol. Anyway, we went inside and he "was starving", so I fed him and bathed him and he yowled and howled about going to bed and fell asleep 30 minutes earlier than usual. So, to summarize our day: