Miz Iz and Monkey Boy

(Big baby! 8 lbs 10 oz. Happy. Squeaky. A name that goes well with D'Artagnan and would make a certain Enterprise 1701-D captain proud.)

Again, I no longer keep an offline journal, so you'll just have to put up with my frequent laundry listing for posterity.

My twice-yearly conference with Iz's teacher was yesterday. I dread these meetings, as they largely concern my daughter's discipline problems, and I find discussing her stubborn, occasionally malicious self-centeredness both mortifying and draining. Yes, she tortures Merlin. She's been doing it for years. Yes, we talk about it each and every time, asking how would she feel if he treated her like that. Yes, she admits that she would be a sad torturee, but then amnesia strikes and she gets him howling again, with a bulletproof argument for why it's not really her fault. Yes, we've also anticipated a future as a weasely litigator for our girl.

Yes, we know that she's reading well. She's the best reader in the school, better than the kindergarteners? Oh. Yes, we know that she can add and subtract. She does it out loud before you finish writing down the problems? Oh. Yes, we know that she can write, we saw the frog book that she wrote and illustrated. No one else did a frog book? We should encourage her to write and illustrate her own stories? Oh. Sigh.

I am grateful to have a bright girl. But managing her education is going to be a fuckload of work, and Leelo's got my reserves almost tapped out already. Allow me my peevishness.

Iz's teacher is obviously concerned that Esperanza will not provide the educational fiber our girl needs, and wants us to have Iz come by in the afternoons next year. More child care? Sure! Sounds great. Although I did tell her that Esperanza is completely straightforward about its students receiving minimal English instruction in the first 2.5 years, and that they advise all incoming families to commit to the school through 2nd grade.

The teacher also said that I should talk to the mom of a student who is now in kindergarten at Esperanza. I didn't mention that I chatted with this mom already. The mom gave me the standard ration of crap about RWC schools and how they have no money and how can this be when schools in Men1o Park and Pa1o A1to have foundations with millions of dollars, to which my internal reaction is always twofold: 1) If we're going to invoke stereotypes, then certainly anyone who lives in a house as nice as yours can seed a fucking foundation and 2) Move to godforsaken Men1o or Pa1o already! Jeez.

Anyhow. Leelo.

Seymour took Leelo to get his hair cut on Sunday. The boy was cute before, but now he's just scrumptious. If you don't notice his talony finger- and toenails (trimming them is an ordeal).

Leelo started climbing our biggest oak tree yesterday, out of the blue and apparently for no reason other than because it was there. He got up as high as I would expect a 3 year old boy to get. That is some normal behavior, woo for him!

He had the crazies today during ABA, but had a great OT session in the afternoon. His OT therapist thinks it was because she did some deep-pressure massage with lotion, I think it was because he had a cat nap on the way there. No matter. Great is great.

Food is still brutal territory. He's only voluntarily eating nut butter toast, potato chips, and raspberries. I tried to get him to eat some apple, and he took the fork-skewered piece and shoved it back at me, yelling "Mommy eat apple!" He wolfed down his re-introduced eggs last week, but has refused to touch them ever since. So I put them in his GFCF pancakes (creating a much more tender product that even Iz will eat) and he ate them all. Excellent.

Bedtime is wearing as well. He gets his stories read, songs sung, looks all catatonic, we turn out the lights...and he goes crazy. Bouncing all over his room, trying to sneak into our bed, presenting his escaped self to us for the pure joy of it. Seymour had to put him back in bed 19 times last night, I counted 15 times tonight. That boy is damn lucky he's so cute.

And that's that. Good night.