April 5th and 6th

Sunday April 5th: Frankie and I played at the house and met Ava and Kristina for lunch at Houston's and a trip to Terra Toys. I got off pretty easy with $3 worth of balloons and stickers. I bought him new Crocs at Sandy's and went to Joel and Kristina's new house. We played hide and seek in the backyard until they both got cranky and came home and had a late nap. Kristina observed they truly treat each other like brother and sister. Ava scolds Frankie when he is doing something wrong and it makes him do it more. After waking up around 5pm, we ate and walked to the park. Frankie met a friend, Ryan, who is his age and lives nearby. Ryan's Mom Courtney lives a few blocks from us. They really did very well together - we barely had to step in. I had to guide a little bit by telling Frankie to ask Ryan's name, but he initially approached him insisting "I want you to chase me!" and he wanted to teach him how to climb the rock. We stayed until nearly dark because our schedule was off. He did not want to wake up the next morning.

Monday April 6th: I picked Frankie up while he was midday through snack. He didn’t bite anyone but did hit someone with a hula hoop. Frankie said, “It was just an accident…I just walked away,” while Devin nodded no. But otherwise, he had a good day and was happy. Drop off was difficult in the morning for the first time in a while, so it was good to see him cheerful. We went to Target for a few things for the house and I let him pick out balloons for being good. We came home and I made dinner while Frankie put the balloons in and out of the cat door to the laundry room, squealing with delight and telling me “they are jumping into the balloon room!” We ate turkey burgers, broccoli and wagon wheel pasta for dinner then walked to the park. Frankie insisted on going the “lost” way (through the easement, which runs all the way to the back of the park to our backyard…he calls it the “lost” way because that is where we looked for Malcolm when we thought he was lost) because he gets to cross over a mini bridge or rocks to get to the other side with the path.

He really enjoyed watching dogs run through the creek and the soccer players on the field. We did both the “big boy” and “baby” swings. He wanted to sit on my lap on the big swings and ride. He kicked the ball around with some big lesbian ladies and enjoyed putting his ball down “huge-onic marble thing” – there are a lot of drainage structures all through the park which look, in many places, like big marble runs. We came home and watered the plants, and then he wanted to take a shower instead of a bath. As I was drying him off he said, “You know what I can do when I am older? I get to go on a hot air balloon ride! And then I’ll go up and get the moon and bring it to Baba’s house…” – the story got more complicated from there on out.

He ate his bedtime snack, something he has been doing pretty routinely…often the dinner he didn’t finish or yogurt and fruit/cheese. He told me he was happy his playscape in the backyard was fixed (the slide) and I told him Krista helped me put it together as well as the bed. He insisted that I call Krista so he could thank her. I did and he told her “thank you for putting together my bed and playscape” and gave the phone back to me. A minute later, he wanted the phone back again and took it and said “I love you Krista. Goodbye.” Very sweet and Krista loved it. We went to read books, put on “itch cream” and he went to sleep very easily.