April 13th

I woke Frankie up from his nap at school and he sat up and said, "I didn't bite anyone today!" I think we have instilled some fear in him finally. We went home and went immediately to the park - his request. Frankie got very angry with my on the swings because I insisted he try swinging himself and told him I wouldn't push until he did it a few times himself to practice. He just sat there definantly and I sat down on the ground. It was a showdown! Finally he said, "I want to go home - I am tired" and insisted I carry him. I finally got him to sit down and watch the birds and we talked about why he was upset and that saying he was tired wasn't really true. I tried to explain that he needed to do things for himself because then he could help himself if we were not there and he would need to do that when he started real school. Finally, we blew up a balloon and he came out of that black cloud moment he was having and we had a good walk home.

He wanted to eat cold rice and strawberries so we did that, then played alot of pretend games inside and painted/glittered for the next couple hours. He wanted to me to be an "elf" so that he could pretend to sleep, then he would wake up and catch me and I would have to eat him because he saw me (this was Frankie's idea, btw). Then, he was ready for dinner #2 - more rice, ham, cheese, strawberries and carrots.

I told him he could pick out new vitamins at Whole Foods, so we went there and he picked out a gummi bear variety and smelled candles. By the time we came home, it was bath time, so he had a long bath. He was anxiously anticipating his egg bath fizzy and loved watching it dissolve though it did turn the tub blue. He insisted that you get some as well... We read all our rabbit books and he has been particularly interested in the Velveteen Rabbit. Finally, he went to sleep around 9am and woke up at 5:30am to come to my room and we slept until 7:30am (got to sleep late because I had an off site meeting).