A Trained Monkey and First Field Trip

Sunday we had to stay home because mommy was feeling really sick and daddy was hurt. Andrew was wearing a shirt with a picture of a monkey on the front. Then he put on a vest that had a train on it. He bounced up and down on the couch acting like a monkey and said, "I'm a trained monkey!"  We thought it was an interesting play on words, given the monkey and train on his shirts. 

Monday, mommy was sick and had to work and daddy had to go to the Dr for a sprained ligament in his knee. So Joy was kind enough to take Andrew to school early in the morning. She said they had quite an interesting conversation.
With a sad tone, "My mommy and daddy are both sick."
Joy, in her kind tender voice, "I know, but they will get better."
A: "No they won't."
J: " Why do you say that?"
A: "Because daddy ran out of laughs, and mommy ran out of air."
Then he suggested they needed to go to Hobby Lobby to get laughs for daddy. Joy envisioned getting helium for me to take in, so I'd talk funny, which would make daddy laugh. Problem solved.

Tuesday he got to go on his very first field trip! They went to Walden Farms and got to pet several animals, play, have a tractor ride, and pick a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch. He has been begging ever since to make pumpkin bread from his pumpkin.

Wednesday night at meeting, he saw a microphone sitting in the chair on the stage awaiting a demonstration. He leaned over to me and asked if he could go up there and grab the microphone and say 'hello' into it.  We laughed and objected but he didn't quite understand why not and said something about having been able to say hello into the microphone once before - a long time ago. I asked Ted later about when Andrew might have said hello into the microphone - he said it was a LONG time ago - like two years ago!

I've been so proud of him. We discussed Halloween weeks ago, explaining what people believe ghosts are and why it isn't true - and that is why we don't celebrate the holiday. He seems okay with it, especially since we've told him that when he says no to those things, he makes Jehovah very very happy (and us!) and he'll add "and it makes Satan sad. I want to make Jehovah happy."  Love him! Anyway, everywhere we go, people are asking him what he will be for Halloween. Neither of us say anything so that Andrew can tell them whatever he wants.  So far, every time he has said quite adamantly, "I'm not doing anything for halloween! I don't celebrate halloween." 

Thursday I met Ted and Andrew at Spring Hill Elementary School to meet with the psychologist and special education teacher there. Andrew sat patiently and was extraordinarily well behaved! He politely introduced himself before we went to a classroom. He said, "excuse me Ms. Casey, can I please play with these toys?" before pulling any out. After a little discussion and some paperwork, we were asked to leave while they did the reading and comprehension assessment.  Later they will do math and basic knowledge of his environment. Anyway, she reported that he was exceptional in his reading and comprehension.  It looked like she had about four pages of stuff and she said that of everything they went over, there were only two things he didn't know (and shouldn't at his age anyway.)  The first was syllables. When she asked how many syllables were in a word, he instead counted how many letters make up the word. She said even that was still advanced. We can't remember what the other thing was.  She said his reading and comprehension is already at a level that she would just be *starting* with 8-9 year olds. It's not that uncommon for a 4 year old to be reading before kindergarten, but usually at that point - it's all just words still. For Andrew, he could read an entire story, and tell you a lot of the details in it even if they weren't directly stated. For example, they read a story about some kids who had an empty fish tank and had to fill it. By the end of the story they had a red fish, blue fish, and yellow fish.  It never said there were three fish... but one of the questions she asked him was 'how many fish did they have?"  He told her three. That was information that he had to come up with on his own - and kids his age just don't do that.  Another example was a story about a Java cup.  In the story, it never tells you that a java cup is for coffee. We can't remember what she said the story actually was about - but the question she asked at the end was, "what is a java cup?"  Andrew told her "it's a cup that you put coffee in and it keeps it warm"  Things like that. She said she does see about 3-4 kids each year that have a higher intellectual ability than most, but she said Andrew, at least in the reading and comprehension department, is "truly exceptional"  He not only read "eloquently" and fluidly, he understood and could expound on what he read. She said he also knew that a period "stopped the sentence".  He clearly passed that assessment with flying colors.
We plan to meet back on November 12th to continue the assessment. 

We were really proud of Andrew's cooperation and how polite and kind he's been the past two days. The psychologist let him pick out two treasures from her box (a pencil and then a large plastic Eeyore figure) and then we told him that we'd take him to dinner for anything he wanted.  "Sushi at Fulins, and I want to pick out where we eat and I want to pick out which one I want to eat."  We told him he didn't get to choose the table, but he could pick what to eat.  He asked the waitress, "does the rainbow roll have food coloring in it?"  We told him it does not, but it is layers of raw fish on top. He opted to have his usual - green dragon roll. 
He had the server, the manager, the sushi chef, and even other patrons involved in conversations, stories, and a debate.  He told them that he had ten grandsons but they weren't alive yet, he was growing them in his tummy. But they will live in (and he listed several different states) one day. Then one story about having a cat (similar to a waving statue they have for 'good luck') in his room that glowed gray, green, and pink.  But then one gal tried to relay it to another and said it "glew in the dark" which sparked a debate about the past tense of glow. Even Andrew told her it was "glowed".

Later in the evening, I was giving daddy a massage, and Andrew was playing with toys. He came and went a few times. Once he came running in in a panic, "Mom! There is a stranger at the door!!"  I told him it was okay, that it was just kids who celebrate halloween coming to ask for candy. He was very concerned that they weren't going to go away. I told him they'd probably already left.  "Forever?"  Yes.  He raised his hands up in the air and cheered.

Saturday morning he was digging around in his legos and found a game piece to one of the 'trouble' games. We have one that is scooby-do and a travel size regular one that I bought at consignment sales.  I asked him what it went to and he said, "It goes to the snoopy doopy"   

We found out Wednesday night that Andrew has his second Bible reading next Wednesday. So we have just under a week to get him familiar with Titus chapter 2!  He's doing pretty well so far as long
as he stays focused.


Saturday evening I got to hear him play the beginning of Twinkle Little Star on his violin! He didn't even look at the paper with the notes written on it!  And I noticed he goofed on one note and then adjusted his fingers to get the correct note. I'm so proud of his progress since he rarely practices at home. Though I guess it has been, what? close to 6 months already of learning.

We played Rock Band again Saturday night. He decided to play the drums for a few songs and got all excited... "pause it! pause it until I get back!"  And he ran and got one of his muslin blankets and the warrior dash viking hat. He put the blanket over his head as hair and then put the hat on top - and then got his drum sticks with the flames on them - all ready to rock n roll!  Then it was his turn to choose a song... they are listed in order of easy to most challenging. He quickly scrolled all the way to the bottom, picked the hardest and worst sounding song and said, "Yeah.. this one." 

Sunday he loved getting to play outside in a pile of fallen leaves.  He and daddy swept all the ones on the deck together and played in those before pushing down to a pile on the ground.