I don't even know where to begin. I've started about fifty posts in my head in the last week but not one has actually become something.
Everyone is slowly on the mend from their various sicknesses (I guess, knock wood). But yesterday morning started with a bang and the hits just kept up on coming. Then there was the call that came later in the day from daycare to come pick Ellie up and the trip to the doctor (with both kids, always fun) to see if she had pink eye (she didn't). But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Ellie awoke at 5:30 a.m. which is code for I Don't Feel Well And Should Probably Stay Home From Daycare (she's normally the teenage sleeper of the house--I wake her booty up at 7:30 almost daily).
Staying home with a little sniffly cutie would have been all well and good except I had a BIG work deadline looming. And honestly, aside from the runny nose and sort of watery eyes, she was fine. Once she woke up and moved around a little and had something to eat and drink, she was in good spirits, her usual chatty, jokey, semi-cooperative self.
So yesterday morning was the usual flurry of ridiculous activity when both kids wake up early. There was me upstairs, speeding to get ready while Leo and Ellie were parked in front of "Sesame Street." Leo protests whenever I put it on (he apparently thinks he's too cool for it) but almost immediately gets sucked into it once a cute Muppet or two appears. Poor Ellie rarely gets to watch it so I try to sneak it in for her at least once a week. I mean, someone has to teach that girl to read, right? (joke).
It was sweet, because Leo knows Ellie loves Elmo. As soon as an Elmo segment came on, Leo called to Ellie, "Ey-yie! Ey-yie! Elmo! Elmo!" and pointed at the screen with excitement, as if she wasn't sitting right there watching the exact same thing he was. But she patiently and enthusiastically received his order to Enjoy Elmo: "Yea Leo, yea. Elmo."
Meanwhile, as I was doing my hair (sounds way more complicated than it is, trust me) I heard Leo calling something to me from the bottom of the stairs, a breakfast request I was pretty sure. It sounded like "duh-duh" which could mean a lot of things--pancakes or French toast, most likely.
When I got downstairs I realized what Leo had been saying, for there on the coffee table in the living room sat a Trader Joe's mini cheese pizza, still in the wrapper but out of the box. This means he had taken a chair, scooted it up to the refrigerator and found his desired meal.
It was barely 6 a.m. but my first reaction to frozen cheese pizza for breakfast was Why the Hell Not? I mean, whatever gets you through the morning, right?
The best part of the Leo Frozen Pizza Incident was that later in the morning when I grabbed a box of tissues from the shelf where we keep the paper recycling, I realized that Leo had actually taken the pizza box and had the forethought to put it in the paper recycling bin! My little environmentalist.
And also, my little bully, apparently.
How's that for a segue? Yesterday I received a note from Leo's teacher in his communication book:
"Two days in a row Leo has taken the glasses of another child at recess and thrown them in the bushes. He has been spoken to about this and asked to apologize, which he has. Yesterday he lost "Center" [free-play] privileges, tomorrow he'll have to sit out recess. Please discuss this with him at home and let him know this is not acceptable behavior."
Not acceptable behavior? I'll say! Where's my hugging teddy bear boy (that's what Leo's pediatrician calls him--I love our doctor but he is definitely the type to say things like "Downs kids are so sweet and cuddly)? Where's my guy who is the first to rush to the aid of his crying classmate (true story, from several past teachers and even his current one, well, before the Throwing Glasses Incidents of 2009).
We've definitely been noticing some increased aggression coming from Leo. We had a good stretch there for a while with the sibling rivalry. It seemed that Ellie's talking and ability to "bargain" with Leo was making things better and less, well, violent. But now, we seemed to have turned another corner. Ellie is getting bigger and her vocabulary is exploding and she is more and more of a "threat" to Leo and his things every day (at least that's how I perceive how it might be for him).
There's been way more pushing and shoving and yes, a return of the growling. And he's even started hitting me a bit. There are apologies and time-outs and then two minutes later the behavior is repeated.
Of course I wrote back to the teacher about my embarrassment and concern and general horror at the whole glasses/recess event. I told her I was open to suggestions on how we might handle Leo's not so welcome new "tricks."
Gah. Not good.
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