What we've been up to

It's been ten days since my last post! Probably no one even checks the blog any more. But here's an update anyway. Turns out Henry's mystery illness was strep throat. We took him to the doc last Monday and he tested negative for it in the office; they sent us home. Then four days later they called and said the lab test was positive. Apparently only 4% of cases are initially negative and later confirmed. Lucky us! So he's had a rough time of it. He's also come down with a cold and is battling that, so it's been almost two weeks that he's been a little or a lot under the weather.

We visited his school for an observation Monday, and it was a delight as usual to see the busy, orderly classroom and the children bustling around. Henry was playing blocks and dinosaurs when we got there, and the assistant teacher was anxious to tell us about the 'big work' he'd done right before we arrived. Then, at her urging, he got out the 'hundred board,' which I know he does frequently, and showed us how to do it, arranging all the tiles in order from 1 to 100. It's nice that his teachers want us to see what good work he's doing, but I'm not really concerned about that; I know he is driven and ambitious and as long as there is someone to teach him, he will learn. I was more pleased-- and surprised-- to see how well-behaved he was. Not in an ostentatious way, but he has clearly mastered the rules of the classroom. Another kid was pestering him, first to put his dinosaurs away (because that kid wanted to play with them) and then to allow him to 'help' Henry with the hundred board, but Henry was unflappable, just doing what he wanted to do (and what is the correct procedure for the class), saying "Nope" to the kid's help, and focusing on his work. When it was time to put work away and come to circle time, Henry put all the blocks away, sat down, and paid attention. Meanwhile, the class was a comedy of errors: tattling, spilling stuff, dropping prickly cactuses on each other... and one small boy was a real challenge to the workings of the class, getting into all kinds of mischief. I could see that although I might despair of Henry's contrarianism at home sometimes (he actually said yesterday: "I am NOT contrarian!"), he's doing great at school. Michael and I are always amazed at how popular he is; when we walk into the school with him, it's a chorus of "Hi, Henry!"s. At first I wondered if all children were greeted that way; Henry rarely even says hello or good-bye to us, so I didn't think he'd be so good at befriending other kids. But I guess he is! I think he might even be cool.

Milk, cookies, and coloring after school

Dress-up box

Agatha is doing great. She's talking a blue streak, says "Mommy," "Daddy," and "Aggie," (instead of Mama, Dada, Aga) and-- to my surprise!-- knows at least four colors: blue, green, pink, and white. I only realized this yesterday when she brought me a piece of clay, saying "green! green!" Her naps are lengthening out to a regular two hours. And she's pretty much eating all day long.

The top picture in this post shows Agatha with her favorite substance, baking soda. For some reason, she loves the stuff (to play with, not to eat!). I'm always trying to head her off from rifling through the baking drawer, looking for it, but a couple of days ago I just decided to let her go for it. What's a carton of baking soda and a little mess, after all? I gave her some scoops and bowls and let her at it. You've never seen such concentration; she worked on scooping and pouring for a long, long time.