April 12th (Easter)

Frankie had a fabulous Easter! After the egg hunt and candy gorging, it cleared up enough outside for the kids to play. We started off with washers, but that only lasted about five minutes…probably a blessing since I was sure that Frankie would nail someone in the head with one. The kids played “chase” and ran around and around, fueled by sugar. Ava wanted to play “rainstorm” in the little plastic house and they both giggled and hid in there while Joel, Kristina and I made rain noises on the roof and simulated thunder and lightning.

They opened every single Playdoh egg and made “blobs” and “Easter cakes”…it’s a miracle that nothing was actually stained or ruined in the entire house. Both Ava and Frankie opened their Easter Bunny baskets – I think Frankie’s two favorite items were a pair of $1 socks with balls on them and a “ball blower”, a wooden, hollow rod with a hole in the top…blow in one end and it suspends a very light ball in the air above it. Scott and Sarah made it by eventually, and Frankie and Sarah ran after each other and Krista held him up to play basketball everytime he asked - he loved all the attention, of course! Ryan and his Mom, Courtney, stopped by and all three played before everyone left about 1:30pm. For the most part, they all did very well together and behaved. I had to intervene a few times regarding the sharing, but that was with everyone, not just Frankie. It was actually shocking how good they all were despite the candy influence...which they generally forgot about once they were outside and otherwise involved.

Frankie was exhausted and well rested but he would not sleep. We read the Easter books my Mom sent and played with the new bunnies and toys, as well as drawing gumball machines and flowers. Our neighbors (Julia and Matt) invited us over to play and we went over there for about 45 minutes (they have a small playscape)…by this time (about 5pm), he was almost falling down tired. I made dinner to get some vegetables in him and he had a tantrum over the table over eating green beans (did not want to eat them and I insisted). We took an early bath (with all the balls of course) - Frankie is very into adding "balt salts". It's funny that he seems to want to do more feminine things with me and more masculine things with you. He wanted to read the Velveteen Rabbit and I couldn't read it without crying because I never can - Frankie was comforting as always. He went to sleep around 7:45pm. At about 4am, he requested milk and came and slept with me -- I could hardly get him up at 6:45am.

I emailed Janel about times to take him to From The Heart as I am sure you saw. I figure we could alternate - you take him one week, I take him the next. It's a drive so twice a week would be difficult and with the level of his problems (the report finds him pretty average overall, just some difficulty with combinations that give a lot of kids problems) I don't think that level of care is warranted.

Frankie does talk about Gertie balls alot!