Sunday/Monday March 29/30th

Sunday, Frankie and I walked to Rattan Creek Park (“the new park”) and played, swung and explored. We also walked up and down the easement in the back of the house, which is filled with flowers. Frankie picked some for a vase on our table – “It’s like eating in a restaurant!” he approvingly says of having flowers on the table. We spent a lot of time walking around, looking for a missing Malcolm, who was gone for ten hours before showing up at the back door nonchalantly. All day I was worried about Malcolm and he kept saying, “Smile, Baba, don’t worry.”

Mostly, Frankie wanted to play in the new backyard and make sure his toys were strewn about (: He loves the new bathtub, which is very deep…”It comes up to my neck!” We drew catfish eating blueberries in the bath and, of course balloons. Monday, Frankie bit someone at school. As a result, there was no ball court or dessert at night for punishment. We went home and Frankie headed to the backyard. He had a tantrum regarding the balloons. I said he could bring five balloons to the park (he wanted to bring 20 or something) and then he said “None” defiantly, then he said “Ten” and then I said “Five” and then he said “Throw Them Away!” dramatically…then “Why can’t I have my balloons…” You get the picture – quite maddening! Finally, we had to have a talk and after he settled we went to the park and Frankie impressively climbed to the top of a big fake rock, played with bunny on a playscape and even gave another little girl a balloon. We played on the basketball court and sat on the bench and had a snack. We went home and played in the backyard some more.

I would not let him play with balloons for the rest of the evening and insisted he play with his other toys. He started to throw a tantrum again, then got involved in drawing and stickers (ask him what the biggest star in the sky is called). I am really trying to direct him away from the balloons and limit his time with them. We had a pleasant dinner of fish, broccoli, tomatoes and watermelon and saw a hummingbird outside. Frankie was very interested, so I told him I would buy a feeder.

We met the kids next door and he played with them in their yard – the boy is 5 (Keyan) and the girl is 1 ½ (Layla). They were gone for the past month in Iran (the father is Iranian) and Germany. Near the end when everyone was getting a little tired, the boy hit him with a badminton racquet…not too hard, but it upset him. He apologized to Frankie and Frankie and I talked about how this is what the people he bites feel like – maybe that is too complex a thought process but I wanted to talk about empathy a little bit in that situation. He’s been sleeping half in his room and half in mine right now, getting used to new surroundings. I got a new sofa yesterday and this morning, he wanted to “talk on the couch”. He went to sleep on the sofa which I made coffee and got breakfast ready. I coaxed him awake with an offer of watermelon and vitamins.

He also knocked something over and said "Shit!" yesterday. I told him it wasn't a nice thing to say but that I knew it was an "accident".